Batman: Extinction Burst
by Michael JG Meathook
Summary: The long past childhood trauma Batman converted to passion, fueling his fight for justice, begins to wane. He finally seeks much needed rehabilitation as his ageless battle with the Joker comes to a head as he decides to end the rivalry for good... one way or the other.
1. Extinction Burst: 1

_"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."_

― Mahatma Gandhi

* * *

Bruce: I want to make it clear that this is purely a social visit. Nothing more.

John: Of course. If it were otherwise, you'd be paying me.

Bruce: I am paying you.

John: I can't accept that. That would be a breach in my ethical code. Either this is a session, or it isn't.

Bruce: I need discretion.

John: But you don't want my services… As a therapist I'm bound by code to be discreet, but if it's a friend you need, my word is bond, and I'll give you the discretion of a friend.

Bruce: Mind if I pour myself a drink?

John: I thought you didn't drink.

Bruce: What are you talking about? You can't pick up a paper that hasn't once snapped a photo of me with a glass to my mouth. You've seen me drinking, in person.

John: It seems to bother you more that I've got a good eye you acting drunk at the gala, than your defacement by the press.

Bruce: (sips) Goddamn that's rich. Where'd you get this stuff? I've never heard of it.

John: It's hard to get your hands on in the states. My uncle sends a cask from the home land. And I need to point out that you've made your decision. Now that you're drinking this can only be a friendly visit.

Bruce: I owed you a visit anyway. I'm sorry you got canned. Wasn't my decision. I'm the CEO, but it's like how the Queen of England can't stop a restaurant from firing the wait staff. It's called a chain of command.

John: Comparing yourself to royalty certainly makes you sound conceited.

Bruce: What? You don't think I am? Like, maybe I've got a deep emotional core made of gold? Problem with that theory it really is the reverse. People only ever see the gold. I'm nothing but walking money to them out there, but in reality I'm all hollow on the inside.

John: Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?

Bruce: (shrugs).

John: I think you're trying to throw me off the scent. Probably by habit. I know when you're deflecting, but _you_ wanted to talk to _me_. If you'd like, I can keep indulging you though.

Bruce: No wonder you were fired. What kind of a therapist would say that shit?

John: Probably not a good one, if this were a first session. But we're just friends having a conversation. Usually I would have all the time in the world to coddle and build trust; I get paid the same. But, as a friend, I'm being honest and direct with you. And, honestly, I can see through your bullshit.

Bruce: Sorry if I'm being a bit of a prick. It's not intentional.

John: Pricks typically aren't pricks intentionally. Do you find that you do it intentionally?

Bruce: …

John: Let me ask you this; what do you hope people see when they're looking at Bruce Wayne?

Bruce: Men or the Ladies?

John: Let's take sex out of the equation.

Bruce: A prick. A guy charming enough to be approachable, but selfish and juvenile enough to discourage lasting relationships.

John: What you're telling me is you're faking?

So you want me to believe that your whole image, all of who you are perceived to be isn't by accident, but is an elaborate caricature?

Because I do believe you. Not to say that it isn't quite elaborate and wholly convincing. In my case, I've only been able to spot you out as a fake because a conman has the preternatural ability to sense his fellow conmen.

I'm not going to pretend to know what is behind the suit that you call Bruce, and I'm not even going to pry. It's not important to me, and you'll feel more at ease knowing I'm not interested. I will, however, confess to you that the true Dr. Crane isn't a genial and warm man, but a bit of a psychopath.

That doesn't seem to alarm you.

Bruce: So you're a psychopath. I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean to me. You're not a violent man or even dangerous. Apparently lack of empathy isn't a requirement to be a good psychologist, based on your work. I believe you're a bit of a hemophobe as well.

John: No one knows about my aversion to blood.

Bruce: Reading your credentials and educational records was like a pop-up book. Test scores like yours, all to quickly switch gears from a medical degree… and you're methodical; not a flippant man.

John: You investigated me before deciding to be my friend?

Bruce: I needed to know if I could trust you. Plus, isn't that your MO as well?

John: Of course. As I was explaining, I, at least, am less than neurologically typical.

Bruce: Please, continue that thread about how you can hardly stand other humans.

John: I never said that.

Bruce: (raises eyebrow)

John: But, yes, that's true. I don't feel a care for people in any capacity, save for the puzzle that they pose. My true desire is to dissect the brain of interesting specimens around me. I originally was in school to be a brain surgeon, but the first whiff of a cadaver sent me fleeing. I then opted to be a neuroscientist at a brain bank, but without blood those masses of fat are as lifeless as they are uninteresting. So, I took the one career that pays to legally and bloodlessly vivisect live patients.

All my manners and tact are learned and meticulously sewn together from my own selection of character traits like a Frankenstein's personality Monster. I don't care for my patients, not emotionally. I am intrigued by the neurons, the flesh, the pulse rushing in and out of that organ. A person's body, to me, basically just looks like a grotesque life-support machine

It just so happens that I unwittingly am helping my patients. Apparently it doesn't matter what the objective of the scarecrow, as long as it keeps the corn safe from crows. I'm very proficient when it comes to therapy, which isn't me boasting. A boast is when you're proud of something. My secret weapon is my apathy. Being in the negatives of sympathy has endowed me superhuman empathy, because I see what those emotionally involved refuse to see. A brain is a machine, a gizmo, a box of wires. Unplug that wire and rewire it into a different socket, and that causes this or that to happen. And thus, a mind can be boiled down to basic cause and effects.

Bruce: Wow. You're really confiding in me.

John: Is that a sarcastic tone? I sincerely did just level with you.

Bruce: Yes you did. But only so I'll now I feel more open to confiding in you. You're attempting to tinker around with my "gizmo."

John: If you're the savant genius boy here, you reveal to me, why is it so hard for you to express to me the real issue that brought you here?

Bruce: You're right, you're right. But, it's like you said. This identity has been meticulously crafted. Problem is, once you've pretended to be someone for long enough, it's all muscle memory from there. I think that's my problem. I've worn a mask for so long, I'm afraid that whatever was beneath has eroded over time, and the mask is now fused into the flesh and muscle.

John: I think I know what you mean. Bring me to the beginning. When did this begin?

Bruce: Bruce Wayne has always been my hack fiction I sold to the masses. Me, the real me, for as long as I can remember, has worked behind the scenes. Incognito, if you will.

John: Like a spy?

Bruce: Like a Kuroko, from Japanese theatre. I'm a behind the scenes stage-hand. Bruce Wayne is the actor. Or, even sometimes, just a painted background.

John: Behind the scenes meaning…?

Bruce: I've been doing anonymous charity work.

John: Alright, I won't ask why this had to be so private. I guess whatever you've been up to, it is pretty valiant of you to go unnoticed in this charity work. It's opposite of the sleazy "look at me!" mentality so many people have while enacting their "generosity."

What I want to know is, when did this split between you and Bruce first manifest? What was the lightning strike that cracked the tree in half?

Bruce: (chuckles)

Guess.

John: Your parents murder.

Bruce: Ya. That's what I want to talk to you about.

(Deep breath)

For as long as I can remember I've drawn mass amounts of strength from their deaths. I'd never admitted that I treated their memory as nothing more than a well, but now that well's run dry.

At my mansion, over my mantle piece, I've kept a preposterously oversized portrait of the three of us. No photos or any other paintings exist of the whole family together. Used to be I'd look up at that painting and I'd feel so sad and mad and hurt, but all in this darkly cathartic way. I fetishized them dying, I know that now. I felt recharged, and took the voltage their demise gave me and turned around and tried powering Gotham City with that conviction.

The other day I looked up at the painting, and I realized how silly it looked. I was having an out of body experience.

I was the me no longer playing the me I thought I truly was, but was the true, actual me. The me that made the Bruce Wayne character, but also devised what I'd believed to be my true identity.

(Chuckles) I hope that makes sense.

And that painting was obviously juvenile and ugly. It didn't make me feel bigger anymore, just sick. I threw it in the trash like a torn sock. No big ritual like burning it in the fireplace or anything.

That's my personal story. Who gives a shit? What gives me chills is what happened after that. I walked by a person who needed my help, and helping people has been my life, my one goal.

As a metaphor, let's say it was a lady who got her purse stolen by some thug. Well, the thug ran right by me; and I'm a pretty fit guy. I know it would've been nothing to close-line this dude and toss the purse back to the woman, but… I lacked that spark I've always counted on that usually goes off. I was numb. I didn't do anything. So, did realizing the true Me I thought was the authentic Me was just another manifestation, somehow dispel that aspect of me for good?

John: After you were numb and didn't act in the fashion you've come to envision yourself acting in, what feeling lingered.

Bruce: Impotence.

John: Ever since you were a boy you've been self canonized as a saint through your parent's deaths by baptizing yourself everyday in remembering their demise? You've been defining yourself by your boyhood trauma, and gaining power by those strong lingering emotions?

Bruce: (Shrugs).

John: Wounds close, heal, and fade along with the pain. Trauma can resolve itself over time. Have you considered that after so many decades of forcing yourself to care, you simply don't anymore? People move on, as often involuntarily as on purpose.

Bruce: So how do I get my motivation back?

John: You want to reopen old wounds?

After all this time you might find that process like trying to lacerate healthily weaved fibrous tissues; it takes a deeper cut to create a new wound where an old one scarred over.

Bruce: Fine. How do I do that?

John: Kill whoever is closest to you now. Or, at least, be somewhere you're able to witness them getting slaughtered.

Bruce: I'm serious. Lives depend on this. How do I get my mojo back?

John: Have you tried to see this as an opportunity, rather than a loss? Maybe you've gained something.

Bruce: As a man, my body reacts to my will, and my will acts on my emotions. By losing the passion I had, I'm as good as paralyzed. That's what it felt like the other day.

John: During your moment of impotence?

Bruce: So what the hell have I gained?

John: You tell me.

Bruce: Goddamnit. I came to you. If it was that easy I would've just sat in a dark room.

John: Fair enough. Well, in my opinion, as it sounds to me, you had a lucid moment when looking at the painting, which in turn has provided you the chance to trade in a pathological obsession for a healthy means of coping with your life for once.

Bruce: I don't care about my life.

John: Don't you? Didn't you just tell me lives depend on you? Ergo, to help those lives, you must be helped, and the most apt candidate in the world for the job is you.

— -

John: Before you finish that bottle, could you pour me a glass; neat.

So you've spent your entire adult life pursuing one goal?

Bruce: Longer than that. When I was still a kid I made up my mind of what my purpose was and dedicated every moment of my life into reaching that end.

John: Exemplary. That is, if you've progressed in achieving this anonymous goal. Surely, with your resolve and sacrifice you're near that end.

Bruce: Not even close. In fact, it sometimes feels like I've made things worse, that I've retreated from that end. I wonder if it's my nightmares that I'm manifest, rather than my dreams.

John: Sounds like a problem with your method. How often do you consider revising your plans on how to manifest your dreams?

Bruce: Occasionally. Problem is, it's impossible to experiment with new methods. It's all set up like a mechanical heart. To touch or even peer at it would mean a lot of blood and likely lead to deaths.

John: (Whistles) Those are some high stakes.

Bruce: There's one person in particular. I've been trying to help them for as long as I've known them.

They are a bit of an extreme case, even for me. They're a danger to themselves and the people around them, but the harder my punishment on them and the more severe my hand, the more they act out. It's like my violence is redoubling through them.

John: So this… person, they act out in some crazy or violent way, then you swoop in, dish it out hard, and the problem persists then intensifies? So, you're actively reinforcing this individual's behavior that you'll give them attention if they act out, and you're surprised they keep acting out?

Bruce: What? I'm not reinforcing anything. I'm punishing their behavior.

John: Not if they're rewarded by your hand, no matter how severe.

Just because the reinforcement results in something harmful, doesn't mean it's not reinforcement.

Bruce: So, like, I thought I was taking away what they wanted by stopping them from thrashing about, but really, I may have been _giving_ them what they really wanted; which is me…

John: If you alter your routine so as to truly punish, as opposed to incidentally reinforce, you could alter their routine into acting in a conductive, rather than destructive manner.

Bruce: But I told you, trying anything new is dangerous.

John: Yes, yes. So is remaining the same, from the sound of things. But you must change how you operate. Have you ever heard of an Extinction Burst?

* * *

 _Author's Note: **Extinction burst** refers to the concept of, after discouraging a behavior by refusing to reinforce it, before the behavior "bursts." After the burst is also not reinforced, the behavior is that much more likely to go completely extinct._


	2. Extinction Burst: 2

_Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps._

-(William Blake, Proverbs of Hell)

I was flying. And then I wasn't. In these later years I'd evolved my grapple technology to be integrated directly with my suit. The sloggish hand operated mechanisms were a relic of the past. Now, at a mere whim, powerful cords would shoot from one or two of the eight possible ports, leach into the city's stones, retract, and launch me forward. The moment between those cords detaching, and before my wings glided me or the cords were shot again, I was flying. Connected to nothing but the wind, supported only by my own momentum, for those particles of seconds I was indistinguishable from the air and the shadows of Gotham.

Up ahead were the unmistakeable flood lights gyrating atop the GCPD. That night it felt wrong to descend on the roof in cascade of blue-black wings breaking my fall in a melodramatic tableau that I'd practiced to perfection long ago, before alighting for the first time in the presence of the police commissioner.

Using one wrist-mounted grapple port I shot and swung toward the ground. Once the cable released I flexed my wings to soar to the entrance of the police station. I collapsed the wings, recalling the poles into my back, and fell vertically for ten or fifteen feet, knowing the shock absorbers in my boots could take over twice that height without me feeling the pressure of the drop at all. The sable wings-turned-cape fluttered around me and floated to the pale melting slosh of day old snow I landed into. It was once I stood up that Gothamites in winter clothes stopped and stared. They were all too stunned seeing me at that exact place to brandish their phones and video me. I summoned the cape into its pouch in my back so it wouldn't be caught in the door.

A silence filled the station after Batman walked through the front entrance. The entrance I'd never before used. For years I'd strutted through any and all doors I'd ever wanted to, whether to make a point of being beyond borders, or just out of urgency. It's a simple trick a person with any charisma can imply, far more often than they imagine; the ability to enter anywhere by disregarding hesitation and enacting an heir beyond confidence, of indifference to the concept of inaccessibility. However, this was the first time since my first year on the job that I had a modicum of hesitation about being allowed through. My mind's eye saw some brash young officer drawing his gun and telling me to stop or attempt to arrest me. Would the others assist on turning on me? It felt as though the idea of me casually walking in like any other person was so fantastical they couldn't fathom how to react. The silence persisted in an odd reverence, even as I went to the stairs and ascended to the roof.

I passed one cop on the stairs who, when they spotted me, looked like they'd seen their crush walking up and embarrassedly looked down, made a wide berth, and mumbled, "S'cues me. Pardon me." I didn't hear them move from that spot for a whole minute before they moved on.

Jim did a real double-take as I walked onto the roof. He'd been looking to the clouds. When he did spot me, his hand flitted to his holster, then eased off it.

"Making quite the entrance tonight," he said, leaning onto his typical perch of the old brick wall that hadn't connected to anything for over fifty years. "I guess for a guy like you the only way left to make an impressionable entrance is to make as mundane a one as any old schmuck."

I didn't say anything. I couldn't yet. I didn't even make eye contact. I walked to the brim of the building, past my most used landing spot, and looked down at the streets below. An artery of Gotham's pulse flowed with the lividity of its inhabitants. A feeling of claustrophobia overtook me, as I was again trapped in my body, no longer a beat of the city's heart or a substantial portion of Gotham's pulse. I was one small man that knew his city, but was not only forgotten by her, but never once acknowledged. Releasing the emergency latch on my helmet, I peeled it off and squeezed the bridge of my nose before inhaling deeply the night's frosty air.

Jim also took a steep inhale out of a shock. Had it never occurred to him that the helmet came off?

"Is, uh, is everything ok?" He asked, not in the same tone a worried friend would ask. He sounded worried like a kid whose parent's fighting had reached a fever pitch, and was nervous they would split and leave his life shattered. He didn't see us as equals. How could he? I slaved over my reputation, to be seen as a defender, a symbol, a being less defined and broader in concept than any man.

After swiping off a freezing bit of sweat from my forehead I replaced the helmet and strode to talk face to face with Jim. "Have you ever wondered what will happen to this city without me?"

Jim twitched and nervously rubbed his hands together, itching for a cigarette that wasn't on his person. "Oh god, Did something happen? Are you injured?"

"No, no," I murmured, waving down his concern. "I'm not saying this to worry you with thoughts of me absconding or dying. My concern is over dependence. I should be supplementing your operations, not replacing them."

Jim furrowed his brow. I may have touched a nerve. "You're not replacing squat. This is a functioning, highly trained, well organized police force-"

"Who's waiting for me to move on an operation," I interrupted. "What if I wasn't here to deal with the Joker?"

"You'd be disappointing a lot of people," Jim said, walking up to me. "People need us to stop crimes, but there's some lunatics, in this city, who elevate the very idea of crimes. The danger a man like the Joker poses aside, what's needed is a hero, someone who let's us know, or at least feel, protected. You do something we can't," he briefly put a hand on my shoulder, "you bring hope."

I looked at his hand he took from my shoulder. Our relationship had never included physical interaction. It was shaping up for a night of firsts. I turned my back to again take in the city, and said, "Have you ever thought, maybe it's wrong to have heroes? I mean, to be so dependent upon the idea that any one man can bring salvation that you sacrifice your personal enterprise to them? It's not wrong to need help, to be weak at all, that's part of what makes us human, dependance on more than ourselves, but isn't it a better philosophy that we look to save ourselves, more than abdicate that responsibility to someone else, including our heroes?"

Jim began pacing, but waited almost a minute before saying anything. He gave a dry chuckle and said, "I always knew this day would come. You've finally had enough fighting for this city and getting nothing in return," he spread his arms out in a defeated manner. "I'd assumed a hero would be motivated by self sacrifice."

I leveled my voice, sounding as granite fixed and self-assured as Batman always did. "I never said I was a hero. Maybe I'm not one. Or, perhaps, self sacrifice is an illusion. The reason I'm bringing this all up tonight, Jim, is because I've come to the realization that maybe this whole time I have been acting completely selfishly. Has my presence helped the city? How can I be sure I've made anything better?"

Jim stroked his hand down his stubbled face, a movement he subconsciously made whenever he was about to make a life or death level call. "I'd stake my gun that you've made a difference on the scales for good. I've personally seen to people who's lives you've saved after you've flown off. Those bright, tear drained faces have convinced me to how much you're needed."

I faced my friend again. "What if I told you this has all been a game to me? That I'm violent, more beast than man; I don't do it for those appreciative civilians, but just for the rush, the thrill of punching those deemed as villains in the face, as that's the only way I'll get away with it?" It wasn't until I saw Jim hold his hands up, backing away, that I noticed I'd switched into me intimidation modulation. I calmed down, but kept looking confrontational. "I wouldn't be the first to tell you that I'm not right in the head."

He spread his arms wide, in an utterly vulnerable pose. "You couldn't do what you do if you were working with a full deck. What do they say? Fools rush in where angels fear to tread?"

Then I gave Jim the biggest shock of the night and did the last thing the Dark Knight would ever do. I smirked.

—-

Commissioner Gordon walked back into the office with a face as white as if he'd lost a gallon of blood.

"He's on the phone," Detective Bullock said, one hand on his earpiece, the other pointing at the landline that was on hold.

"Yap," Gordon said.

Every eye was on their leader, waiting for him to make the next move.

"I'd better take it," he said, and meandered his way to the phone, his lethargy similar to a man half asleep trodding to the bathroom. "This is Gordon."

Even the officer's without earpieces could hear that theatrically evil voice that made their skin crawl, as it drafted its Mephistopheles bargain the utterer knew could never be agreed to.

"No, no," Gordon said, mindlessly scratching the back of his head, "can't do any of that. I did just talk to Batman, and, well, he wanted me to give you a message…" His eyes swept around the room, wanting to convey how sorry he was for what he was about to say next. "He, uh, Batman's not coming tonight. He's sitting this one out."

Not a breath was heard in the room. It sounded like even the Joker had to take a beat to suss what game was being played.

"And, what's more," Gordon continued, "he's sworn off ever getting involved in any case with you in the future."


	3. Extinction Burst: 3

It had been three weeks. The Joker had been at one of his favorite games. He'd catch as many as he could of the police officers or detectives assigned to his case, give them a Columbian necktie, then soak their body in strong acid to leave a wholly unidentifiable corpse somewhere in public hiding beneath ordinary things, like sand at a park, bushes in medians, or up trees at personal residences. The first time he initiated these crimes, the message was painstakingly approximated. Our perceptions of death were restraining us from truly living. As useless as it was to attempt to identify the bodies, so was it to worry about death or what became of us after. When we died, we were gone. Our identities, our families, our bodies… By treating a corpse like a person, we were preparing ourselves for an idea of death that was false.

This time, he was just pissed.

And his demand was more overt than ever. He would escalate until Batman himself put an end to the determined madness.

Gotham PD had to call in the FEDs to help with the constant bomb threats. They'd find explosives at sites enough of the time to necessitate a full team for each threat, but mostly they'd find boxes of wires that gave every appearance of being bombs until the experts were halfway through disarming them.

Bruce Wayne had more free time then ever. He was finally getting full nights of sleep, so his body no longer felt constantly rigid, and his mind felt sharp and clear in a way he didn't think was possible. In his spare time he'd opened a new charity, found ways of getting more money to the underpaid PD, as well as equipping the force with better than up-to-date technologies.

He'd even opened up a martial arts studio for youths in inner city Gotham. It was becoming clear there were innumerable ways he could help his city with his money that didn't include buying new weapons and armor for himself for his one man war against crime. Plus, he was considering crime might be a thing that can't be defeated head on, but rather a better tactic might be to try and clean the city enough to make it a more conducive environment for the new generation.

Bruce also worked on an organization to enrich the Gotham schooling system based on cutting-edge research and developments in the field that included less textbooks in place of more books written with teaching, rather than lesson plans, in mind. His cell phone was filling up with contacts of revolutionaries in the field of educational psychology.

After a long day, Bruce arrived home, worked out for an hour, and flipped on the local news. The Joker had barged in on a mayoral candidate's campaigning at a nursing home. It sounded like the Prince of Crime was trying to coerce the politician into killing a patient sustained on life support.

—-

Mayoral Candidate and past news reported Jack Ryder found it hard not to imagine what getting impaled would feel like.

He'd spent enough time around tv execs, politicians, and business tycoons and before that, interviewing criminals, murderers, and gang bangers to feel like he was beyond intimidation. But something about the sight of the natural ivory skin and inhuman green hair the shade of lime shells had caused all mental fortitude to leak out of him. That predatory grimace on the statuesque features of the Joker's horribly handsome face, combined with the high yet solid and domineering voice caused goose bumps involuntarily to pop up, and his voice to go meek. The criminal was a paradox of both subhuman, animalistic and superhuman qualities, like a forgotten demiurge.

The killer was crass as a mentally disturbed preteen boy but, likewise, impossibly charismatic. And right now, he carelessly twirled an old hand scythe, still grass stained from actual use, and recently sharped. The weapon gave every appearance that the Joker casually had pilfered it from a gardener's tool shed. Ryder was familiar with the Joker's MO of using common place tools as weapons during his "demonstrations." No doubt it had some symbolism attached to it.

In front of Jack was an old woman filled with tubes and smelling like cheap soap and old-person that had been basting for a century in their own fluids and wastes. His captor was finishing some monologue about the senior citizen's many painful surgeries, lack of mental capabilities, and general sustaining pain and anguish from being kept alive. In his hand, Jack held a butchers knife given to him by the Joker.

"Why this crippling aversion to death?" The Joker said. "In such a case, might we not be monsters for forcing life upon this husk filled with of torment and woe? Her mind isn't in a state able to consent to our ravishing of her body. By fearing death more than anything, we've forgotten the beauty in its grace, or the potential perfidiousness of life."

Jack started, as the Joker's voice unexpectedly whispered in his ear, sensually, with cold breath smelling faintly of formaldehyde, "Don't make death your enemy, Jacky. Be a good person for once, and stick the old-porker. End this samsara of despair."

Ralph, Jack's campaign manager, over-weight, bald since before his 20's, and asthmatic, took the knife the villain had handed him, and did the stupidest and most heroic thing Jack had ever seen him do, and swiped at the now very close and back exposed Joker.

It didn't matter. With ease and a speed that would make Jackie Chan look like a sloth, the Joker pivoted, moved his hand in a blur so Ralph's knife hand threw him off balance and missed the intended white face by a mile. Staggering back, Ralph, father of three, choked and grasped at his throat. A grated wheezing escaped his blue turning lips. In an imperceptible movement the Joker must have crushed Ralph's windpipe.

Jack fell to the floor with his friend, patting Ralph's shoulders in a panic. Jack's mind was blank with terror, but unable to help the dying man in any way.

"What an excellent opportunity," the Joker said, his voice chiming with joviality.

An ink pen of exquisite quality clinked next to Jack.

"I enjoyed your report on that hero doctor who performed an emergency tracheotomy on the train," The Joker said through smiling teeth. "I hope you remember it as well as I do Jacky."

Jack's shaking hands grabbed the pen, unscrewed it, and removed the dry tube from the center. He brought his knife to Ralph's throat and put it to where he guessed the cricothyroid membrane was.

The knife shook in Jack's tunneling vision.

"So you can't even muster up the spine for the wet work of saving your fat friend's fading life," a bitter laugh followed.

Jack closed his eyes, but was too paralyzed to even take a calming deep breath. What could he do? An image of going the way of Ralph flashed through his mind, trying to stab the maniac laughing behind him before calling an ambulance. What a pitiful idea. Not only was it impossible for an ambulance to reach them in time, but of course the Joker would annihilate any attempt to attack him, as he'd just proven. It wouldn't help Ralph if Jack also got himself killed.

A burst of unexpected noise of a man singing opera forced an effeminate scream from Jack. He peeked behind him at the Joker patting down his pockets before removing a cell phone. He held it awkwardly with two fingers like it was radioactive.

"I never would've taken a greasy porker like this to be a fan of Schubert," The Joker said. Jack recognized the phone and pretentious ringtone as Ralph's. "This is going to be stuck in my head for a week," He hit the answer button. "Sorry, I'm a bit busy being overweight and dying because my buddy's too big a pussy to save my life right now, please call back later."

The Joker winked at Jack and made to hang up, until a deep, chain-sawing guttural voice commanded something through the speakers. The Joker licked his lips and put the back to his ear.

Jack swore the rest of his life he merely imagined that the Joker's eyes flashed red as his face furrowed into a mask of wrinkles that looked like a political cartoonists over-stylized vision of what a wrathful face would look like.

"You," the Joker's voice dropped like a sudden hole in the floor to octaves below what most people were capable of, before retuning to its normal, higher range, now poisoned with malice. "Thought you'd be too afraid to show up after being responsible for so much death, as of late."

Jack could only hear the timber of the voice on the other end grind like a tank engine. The Joker listened, turning his back and holding up a finger for the hostages to give him a second. It was an overtly mundane and civilian motion, which made the Joker doing it all the more eerie. The pale man began "mmm-hmm"ing and tapping his foot.

A hideous and earsplitting laugh erupted from the Joker, so loud it forced Jack to plug his ears with his hands.

On reflex, his mind snapped to how he'd type out the report for his "up-close and personal one-on-one exclusive" with _THE_ Joker. But now all those other reports he'd read and scoffed at, he then realized he had to wholeheartedly agree with. The Joker was beyond the description of any human. To try and sum the Prince up in an article would be as different from describing a human person as trying to give characteristics to a newly discovered galaxy.

"This is your attempt to foil my little theatre piece?" The Joker shrilled. The venom in his voice ricocheted off the walls like bullets. "There's only one way you can get this to end. You have to come to me. And if you don't, if you stay hibernating in that cave of yours, this will only get worse. I have ideas you could never conceive of, even with your deliciously perverted brain."

The other voice clipped a quick retort, causing the Joker to grasp at the phone with both hands like it might slip away. "No, no, don't you fucking dare hang up. Not on me!"

And like an earthquake had happened, Jack felt as though the world had literally shifted. _He lost_ , Jack thought. The Joker had caved in to the other's will. Not that, given one thought about it, there was any mystery to who the caller was.

In a haze, the Joker closed out the conversation, acquiescing to the demands, hanging up, commanding his goons outside the door to roll out, and grabbing Jack's hand with the knife in it, and guiding the sharp point, with robotic grace and stability, to slice Ralph's cricothyroid membrane, while exclaiming, "For Christ's sake, Jacky. I thought you valued life." The ease the Joker popped the straw into the throat reminded Jack of a bartender tossing a toothpick umbrella into a mixed-drink.

The Joker clicked his fingers in remembering to do something he'd almost forgot, walked over to the elderly woman, looked at her fawningly while fatherly patting her head, uttered something in an asiatic language, then grasped her hair and tugged it up while swiping at her neck with his scythe in a perfectly practiced and relaxed motion. He walked out the door leaving the detached head to sit on the pillow peacefully, as the white sheets and white mattress turned a violent red.

The last image stuck with Jack Ryder forever.


	4. Extinction Burst: 4

The scent of blood still tingled his nose. Confused as to why most people palled at the scent, he relished in how human's insides smelled of lightning and salt mines and a unique third property. Assumedly, more people didn't kill as much as he did because they lacked the sensory acuity to basque in the mystique of its full range.

Walking down the darkened alleyway devoid of any street lights the entirety of Franz Schubert's _Die Forelle_ played note for note in his head, as predicted. Again and again, all the way through. Every note, every beat. Willingly, he put on Arnold Schoenberg's _Serenade Op 24_ , one of his favorites, in a predictably impotent attempt to drown out Schubert. This was the second Schoenberg playing in his head. That made 10 songs playing in his head at that time, each of which he was fully aware of and heard, recreated, in the clarity everyone else had listening intensively to one song with rapt attention.

So far, 10 songs had been his limit, and since he was timid to try any more than that, it was unfortunate the added Schoenberg didn't quiet the Schubert any.

 _What a night, what a town_. How could he ever leave this city? Without even looking up, he could hear the receding rush of red particular to Gotham's night sky. He could taste the color's umami undertones.

He could smell the aura of human life behind each door he passed.

 _That backdoor lead to an abandoned apartment, and 15 scratchy bum presences wafted into his nose._

 _This next door was a pawn shop with, what smelled like, a pure ball of sweat of a person moping about._

Between cracks of the shadowed ground were peeking tufts of grass. Without his consent the virulent green color bled from the plants and danced into the air. That shade didn't actually taste like grass, as it was far more piquant. Now that the coloring spilling had begun, the night sky's red and violets gushed in front of his perception with tinctures of light trickling out of crevices in doorways and cardboard covered window frames leaping around him.

About 15 to 20 memories bombarded him, though most taking on dreamlike exaggerations. Many having to do with Batman, who, in his memory, sometimes grew to the colossal size of Wayne tower, or walked around with stone skin like a gargoyle, and occasionally dribbled black plasmic ooze from his orifices. In one memory, Batman looked handsome and swashbuckling, and demanded the girl be set free.

 _Did that one really happen?_

He reached the given address. Of course he hadn't ever needed to look up directions; all of Gotham City resided in his head. Again he wondered whether that was because he'd imagined the city into being or vice-versa, until recalling that Batman also had Gotham residing in his head. Logically, they had created it together… or vice-versa…

The restaurant was figuratively and literally underground. Neither cops nor citizen's knew _Ursus_ existed _,_ as it was owned by Black Mask and reserved for the most private of dealings for Gotham's underworld.

The walls were lined with wallpaper fitted better for a different country as well as century. There were gas lamp looking lights barely illuminating the stairs. The Joker couldn't smell anyone ahead of him, until he picked up the aura of a man and woman in what must be the kitchen. He entered the pitch black and empty seating area. Above him was a solitary and dim spotlight on a seat at the executive table led strikingly upwards by two stairways at the back of the room.

He attempted to sense any other soul at the table, but sensed only an insubstantial glimmer of a shadow. Didn't necessarily mean anything.

Climbing the stairs, he sat at his seat lit by the spotlight. Once he did, the light began to widen out from his seat, until it reached the edge of the other side of the table. In full control of his emotions, the Joker's breath and heart rate remained just as unwavering, and even his pupils stayed stalwart as if noting had changed, despite the jagged and marble hewn features of Batman manifesting in the recesses of the light.

"Well, sweets, you got me here," the Joker gave his casualist of shrugs. "What did you want to discuss that you couldn't bring yourself to come down to my place and say?"

"I thought," said a rapturous voice that, although every note, intone, inflection, and modulation had been stored and could be recalled perfectly in the Joker's head, brought up a chorus of emotions, divine equal to a heavenly host unto shepherds so long ago. "We've discussed ceaselessly for so long, in every conceivable way, over every conceivable resolution to our battles. Tonight, why don't we just break bread together?"


	5. Extinction Burst: 5

_The Nihilist, in claiming that our fate is unfair, unwanted and unfavorable, nevertheless need not take this as a signal that it is necessary to collapse in despair or to abdicate a passionate adherence to the highest and most unattainable ends. Rather, with humor this individual might understand life, and all of the failures we endure during its course, as part of a cosmic drama that is amusing in its ultimate absurdity."_

-John Marmysz

* * *

Joker: I'm trusting my liver isn't poisoned.

Batman: I've never had it raw like that before, but I'd assume it's safer to eat when cooked.

Joker: I wouldn't put it past you to slip me a mickey. You're such the archetypal man, so I know you don't always keep it in your pants until receiving consent.

Batman: And I'm not putting it past you to either know if you're about to be drugged, or be flat out immune to any dosages apportioned for ten men your size.

Joker: You flatterer. I'm a just a good guesser, and I wouldn't say my guts are more than 9 times more resilient than the average man.

Batman: To answer your real question, there will be no tricks tonight. Not on my end.

Joker: That would be the real trick, wouldn't it? After all these years, that might be the one way left to blind side me. What're we talking about tonight? You going to convince me to turn myself in?

Batman: To Arkham? What good would that do anyone?

Joker: So you're more afraid of the insanity I can spread in there than out here? Come on luv, there can't be more than one Dr. Quinzel in the world.

Batman: Or suicidal guards to talk to death?

Joker: Oh, you remember that one? I could never recall if Jerry was real, or my own figment and I'd just been speaking to myself.

Batman: I'm here to turn myself in.

Joker: To Arkham? I'm sorry to say this, but as good an idea that is, I don't see you pulling off orange. For you, there is no new black. You've kinda' got the market cornered on that trend, and you're not breaking out of it.

Batman: I'm turning myself into you.

Joker: Honey, forget orange, can you even picture yourself in white and green? Would definitely up your frightening quota, but consider the outbreak of ulcers from all the swallowing of bile in this town.

Batman: What do you want from me? I'm willing to discuss terms. How do you see this ending?

Joker: But you promised, no tricks tonight.

Batman: There's no trick. I'm worn out with you. Everything I've done has encouraged your violent neurosis. I want to know what can be done to finish this.

Joker: …

Batman: …

Joker: 'Fraid you've hit the jackpot on logical paradoxes here, sweets.

What do I want from you? I want you to keep being you.

Batman: …But when will you stop being destructive?

Joker: _[Slams table. Silverware and dishes clatter. A bowl falls to the ground and shatters]._

YOU KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT! How fucking dare you ask me that?

Batman: I'm not going to kill you.

Joker: I have a suspicion you wouldn't have herded me in here if you hadn't realized, in some form, how hypocritical you are, that you've always been.

You're all like, "Some rules can't be ever be broken. Some must be broken to prevent rogues from breaking the unbreakable ones." How do you decide which rules are unbreakable and which are evil to exist in the first place?

I'm not allowed to kill people because that's an unbreakable rule. And to stop me, you have to break every law against vigilantism, against hacking computers, or violence, or traffic laws (both land and air), or any other laws against interfering with police investigations. But you're not stopping me from breaking the one and only immutable law, the ultimate taboo: of murder, are you? If you realized that you can justify breaking some rules, than any rules can be broken because of your freedom as a human being. If you had used that freedom long ago and only broken the rule against murder, I'd be dead, and scores of my would-be-victims would still be alive.

Killing me at this point you wouldn't be profaning your taboo against murder, because you're stabled with all my transgressions.

Batman: The only one with blood on their hands are the one's with the literal blood on their hands.

Joker: Am I really the first one to express this idea to you?

Batman: If you wanted me to stop you, and you reason me preventing you from those murders was the correct course of action for me… that means you know what you did was wrong. So why did you kill all those people?

Joker: For you. For them. For everybody, including me. I had to prove to you that you're free, in this reality; that you're truly free to stop me in the most optimal way conceivable. I had to prove to them the fallacies of their ways; that their concepts of death, and safety, and legality are all flawed and illusory.

I did all of it because I enjoy it. This sort of work might be the only thing that brings me any sense of joy.

Batman: Have you tried to be good? Do you know it wouldn't fulfill you?

Joker: You mean your mind's conception of what your idealized self's version of "good" is? Saving lives? Defending Gothamites from villains or death and suffering? Yes, I've tried it. Not necessarily here, but I've gone incognito before and stopped criminal organizations from hurting people. I've made sure other super villains were delivered justice to prevent them from propagating their nefarious seeds of destruction.

Batman: …

Joker: You don't believe me, but it's true. Assume right now that I believe I did these things.

Batman: And?

Joker: And I got nothing from it. No satisfaction, no pride, no happiness; not a single rock was set off. Even seeing the tear streaked faces of those I saved from demise as they looked at me and lavished thanks upon me. I felt empty.

Batman: But that isn't the point. I'm not saving people to feel those things, I'm doing what's right because righteousness is its own merit.

Joker: What a crock of guano. If you didn't put your own enjoyment above or equal to everyone else's like I do, you wouldn't be out swashbuckling around. What an infantile fantasy. You're a child's answer to "what do you want to be when you grow up?" And they reply, "Zoro, no, a ninja, I mean a bat, but like a bat that's also a man!"

If you were selfless, as you ascribe yourself, you would have killed me at the sacrifice of your own conscious and lived with the guilt. Instead, you used your moral superiority as an excuse to keep me alive and basque in your Peter Pan Syndrome.

Batman: …

Joker: …

Batman: There has to be another way. You can't want to die.

Joker: Of course I don't want to die! But that's me dealing with the limitations of my own mind. I shouldn't care if I live or die, because death isn't real.

Batman: So you continue with the mayhem, death, and pageantry until I accept your lesson and kill you?

Joker: That's always been the game. And the sooner you sack up the better. Neither of us have forever… I think.

Batman: What if I never give in?

Joker: Gotham becomes a darker, grimmerer version of itself, and you get old, but never learn to be happy. Your flesh and mind are replaced by your anger and loneliness.

Batman: I think you're right.

Joker: This dinner might all be worth it if we're at last going to reach decision time. Although I fear I know what you're going to say, because it's what you've committed yourself to always saying.

This is when you bravely rise, feeling vindicated for the Nobel-Prize-For-Chivalry of an effort. Unfortunately for me, you're mythically dauntless, and you'll never cave into that final tincture of darkness you've yet to tap. You'll die miserable and wrathful, but that's the only action befitting the hero.

Oh, I do so wish you'd see things my way, but I can be a pragmatist. I can read the writing on the wall.

Batman: You're not wrong. I think I've been ignoring this very augur for too long. The Hero's only option here is to take a stand, to resist the third temptation on the mountain.

But-

Joker: What are you doing? _Don't do that!_

Batman: (Tearing off one of his wings) What if there is no hero? What if I'm not destined to learn your lesson or die sad and broken? You'll have no reason to continue with your plans if there is no Batman.

Joker: That's not an option.

Batman: Not much of one. But it is a solution.

Joker: But I don't exist without you.


	6. Extinction Burst: 6

The bits of mesh from the cape fluttered in the darkness toward the floor, then seemingly halted. The Joker's exclamation had frozen time. In the recesses of my most repressed fears, and behind the bars of the most haunted bowers in my mind, festered a troubling conceit. Never had I been able to utter the thought to myself, even safely behind the shield of my skull, my undeniable worry that the only reason I, Batman, existed, was because the Joker imagined me.

Though outwardly antagonistic, we tugged and pulled at our conjoining tissue, yet nourished each other's desires and dreams perfectly. We acted out combating parasites, but to disguise from the world how hopelessly symbiotic we relied on the other. What if our dark interconnections were no coincidence?

What was it Strange had once said? That: "Reality is a matter of subjective perception. Awake, we question reality as much as we do in dreams, so why do we bother differentiating the two so much? If dreams aren't the biggest hint to the question of existence, than there are no hints." And the professor certainly came across as a reputable source in how realty could be warped in more ways than just perception.

Now that those wolfish long lips had said what I'd feared for so long, that had felt even more probable after the events with Hugo Strange, it clicked in at last, that it was all true.

"Our destinies aren't written by anyone but ourselves," I said, feeling something inside me dislodge. Some emotion that had been blocked for a long time was loosened. I was becoming angry. "If one of us creates the other, than why are we opposing forces?"

"We're not." He threw his legs onto the table and crossed them, all his fear from a second ago completely replaced with a humored air, like he knew a secret I didn't. "Our fights have all been to make you stronger."

This was a sentiment I'd suspected he believed, and I'd tried to explain it to the disbelieving ears of Jim once before. I smirked, seeing the flaw in the Joker's statement. "But not strong enough. You said yourself, you don't see me ever getting there, to the point of killing you. Aren't we both being foolish in trying ceaselessly to win, despite _knowing_ the other will never concede?"

The Joker put his hands behind his head. "I've been called a fool many times. In many ways, I like to think it's fitting."

"A fool can't make a dragon of a windmill any more than anyone else. You're not a fool, not really."

After barking a laugh, the Joker said, "You're calling me quixotic? The guy who declared a war against _crime?_ You know, like the entire metaphysical concept of crime."

I turned to leave. I'd lured him away from a potential blood bath tonight and meet me for dinner instead, so it was a safe bet I could do the same again later. "Not anymore. We both lost this war. It's time to start seriously contemplating peace."

As I walked a confident and definite speed away, I heard that patent spine-chilling cackling, before the Joker exploded into wrathful cursing and calling my bluff. That voice carried like a cluster of flash bangs.


	7. Roots in Hell: 1

_Years earlier…_

A muffled _WUMF_ reverberated before chunks of bullet proof glass clattered down into an empty hallway. A dark figure flies down the hole it just exposed. Batman wore a mask covering his entire face. His armor has frayed, torn, been scratched and bitten. The sable cape, punctured and worn in with holes, once prompted, whirls and zips into a pouch on Batman's back. Under the armor were countless splotches of black and blue bruises. Under the mask blink heavily bagged eyes. Unshaven bristles pushing uncomfortably against the mouthpiece.

It has been the longest few weeks for the Dark Knight, which is saying a lot. There were dozens of better ways to infiltrate Arkham Asylum than making a loud noise that would attract every guard to his location. Not to mention that C4 was a-typical on Batman's list of preferred gadgets; as were the far-from-FDA approved stimulants he was jacked up on. He pressed the button setting off three other charges, praying under his breath no people were near enough to be killed. This was sloppy and reckless, but with severe sleep exhaustion and the battered state of his body, it was the best to be hoped for.

He took off at a stealthy pace toward the most impossible to reach portion of the over-the-top defended asylum.

The police, at last armed with a warrant, were out front but prevented from getting inside. Arkham Asylum, from the inside out, had slipped into palpable madness. As soon as the police had arrived, something snapped in every employee inside the former castle's walls. Every doctor, psychiatrist, nurse, and orderly had turned into soldiers defending the mental hospital like it was under siege and their lives were at stake. The most apparent explanation for this was mind control.

Batman didn't like the insane proposition, and wanted to first assume normal types of persuasion behind the uncharacteristic actions the staff were exhibiting. Perhaps they themselves were being threatened. With the recent addition of an elite private security team being hired on (with the trail leading back to Jeremiah Arkham, though Batman doubted that to be anything other than a mislead), there were nine highly trained guards at any given time who could be muscling around the staff at their leader's say so. But, that the private security themselves would so openly disregard the law, despite knowing the police knew their identities, wasn't likely. The situation felt similar to dealing with cults, but much stranger.

At his point of entry, there were a total of twenty orderlies, four Arkham security officers, and all nine private security guards in the same wing as Batman as he trotted down to the subterranean level of Arkham where the Sanatorium was behind a Wayne Industries steel vault. the odds were low Batman would have to confront all the potential guards in the wing, but he assumed he would, as it payed off to be mentally prepared for the worst, then thrown off guard when the probable went sour.

His body ran on fumes, so now more than ever it was wise to face as few physical confrontations as possible. Unfortunately, the day's events had depleted most of his gear. Not to mention that the guards would all be covered with thick body armor and gas masks, severely limiting what gear would be effective.

Gas was out, as were tranq-darts and ball-bearing grenades. He thought of one _local resource_ that he could use without cost to his own gadgets.

He heard approaching footsteps in the next corridor he had to pass. The first confrontation was about to begin. There was nowhere to hide, and he wasn't about to lose momentum with turning back to find an alternate route. He brandished his Arkham skeleton key, and began opening doors to criminally sane patients.

Most patients gave him much of a look once he told them to "Go." Some ran, some stayed, all stopped and stared as the three guards came around the corner and confronted them. Four of the patients rushed the shocked guards

Batman zip lined over them all and took off in a faster, less pre-cautious jog than before. The patients would be dealt with in a few minutes and his location was no doubt alerted to the others.

Six more guards blocked his path. Batman threw a smoke grenade. They had thermal goggles, just like him, but he had a technique he would never have used if he was in less desperate a situation. As they charged through the gas toward him, he shut off all vision and sight in his mask and tossed a flash bang. As he turned his senses back on, he heard their screams of pain before zip lining over their collapsing bodies.

Running through a tee-section of hallways, he was blindsided by a hiding guard football-style tackling him. Batman was slammed against a wall by a man who was massive enough to be an actual line-backer.

Dazed from the force, Batman's reflexes snapped into action, working to break himself from the man's grip. However, the giant man was fast as well as strong, and circled around Batman, pinning down his arms to his waist. Before Batman could react, three other guards popped around the corner, one shoving a billy club lengthwise into his throat. If it wasn't for the armored cowl, the strike might have crushed the Dark Knight's windpipe.

Batman first had to do something about the goon behind him. He lifted his leg and dropped tremendous force down to crush the foot of the man holding him. The guard's foot deftly moved from the strike before wrapping around Batman's leg to restrain it back. This was an asylum, after all, so it figured the guards here would be specifically trained in grappling. The two guards not holding him down began swinging their clubs at his arms and face.

 _There were no moves left to break him out of the two men's combined holds._

Batman took a club to his mask. His vision blinked in and out for almost a second.

 _His right hand rubbed at his latent flashbang. Dropping it might distract them enough. But he would take the most damage, as only his thermal vision was activated._

A club hit his right arm, making it go numb.

 _If he twitched his left hand in the right motion…_

A sable cape shot out like an airbag into the helmeted face of the guard behind Batman, having no effect. A club strikes dangerously close to his knee. The club against his throat must be cutting off his circulation, as consciousness began to fade.

 _A second twitch in his left hand…_

Long, flexible, jointed poles fired out from where the cape shot from, filling the black material, began to shape into bat-like wings. The big goon's muscular arms fumble.

 _It's just enough._

Batman slides down out of the arms, frees his stuck leg, and kicks away the man choking him out. He spins around, pivoting on his knees, and upper-cuts the giant goon's crotch with enough force to ignore the cup protecting the genitals.

Batman flicks his wrist. As the wings and cape are recalled into his back he faces the three bum-rushing guards. The first he ensnares with a tossed bola, though that doesn't stop the man from careening into Batman, and both slide to the floor.

Before the other two can grab him, Batman tosses two electrified knives, each puncturing the guard's armor, and shocking them to the ground.

Batman couldn't be sure of how long the four of them would be incapacitated, but likely he'd bought himself less than a minute.

He was off again, sprinting down the hall and down the stairs.

A disconcerting hitching rasp accompanies his breaths. His right arm dangles. A leg threatens to give out. Lights he knows aren't real pop in and out of his vision, and darkness tangles at the edges.

 _There._

The vault's steel-door. A stockpile of C4 would hardly puncture the structure. It was state of the art and expensive as hell. Even The Batman would never be able to pick this particular lock.

He began shifting tinctures of loose armor on the right shoulder. The mechanism was inspired by a _himitsu bako_ , a Japanese box that required solving a puzzle to open. A hiss escaped, and the armor down to his wrist slackened. A seal became accessible on the forearm, which Batman released. He pulled his mesh glove off, then carefully picked at an invisible film covering the skin. The film had a set of randomized prints on the palm and was porous enough to let sweat and blood pass (but not before destroying the fluid's traceable genetic structures).

Bruce Wayne's naked arm protruded from Batman's armor. This he applied to a scanner next to the door.

"Priority override Omega-Zeta," Batman said, mimicking Wayne's voice.

Behind him were the heavy steps and curses of the guards and security. Their shadows towered over Batman on the wall next to him. He met their eyes as he slinked in through the vault and heaved the several ton door shut on them.

 _Now we descend into the bowels of Arkham._


	8. Roots in Hell: 2

_Too much of the animal disfigures the civilized human being, too much culture makes a sick animal._

-Carl Jung

* * *

The tunnel's archway to the Sanatorium retained an aesthetic better fitting a coal mine. Unlike the reinforced and painstakingly retrofitted wing leading to the vault, the Sanatorium's structure and design were by and large left unchanged since its inception. Rather, sleek new equipment had been brought in bolstering it with strong anachronistic qualities.

Ironically, the first thing Batman notices as he exited the tunnel and reached his destination, was new to the cave but looked older even than the castle. A holy water font lay in reach of any person who entered. Saint Maria's statue held a basin of clear water, though a green-black bile like mold grew around the statue, making the angelic creature appear necrotic and vile.

A flash of memory shocked through Batman's system of his mother bringing him into St. Lawrence's Cathedral as a child and showing him how to make the sign of the cross after dipping his small fingers in the font's water.

He almost did so with Bruce's still exposed hand, before shaking his head and covering it with his glove and snapping the armor back in place.

In front Batman was a big hollow, circular room with the advanced medical equipment against the circumference and up on scaffolding. It was lit by old flickering bulbs on string-wires, causing the receding halls from the main room to pull back into tantalizing pitch blackness. In its center were several heavy lights bathing Hugo Strange, mid surgery.

It was eerily silent, other than the doctor's hands mushing with the woman on the operating tables organs, with the blood making noises reminiscent to a small child splashing in puddles next to his father on a Gotham spring rainy day.

Strange, in lieu of wearing scrubs, wore a butcher's bib apron over a dark suit of a style more in line with the castle than the sun-bright flood lights overhanging him. His shoulders were wide and his back twitched with powerful, lithe muscles. He stood taller than most men, including Batman. His face, which was turned from Batman, had the symmetry and virtue of a young Marlon Brando type, but was severely undercut by early onset male-pattern baldness left unattended, a thick square-cut wiry beard obfuscating his most geometrical features, and thick-circular glasses transforming his striking hazel eyes into beads.

"It is better you did not disturb the holy water," Strange's resonant, impeccably enunciated speech with a slight accent echoed into the room. "Inside it I laced a dangerous plague. Helps vivify my work; knowing I am near contracting death _in omni tempore_."

"Why have you left it fermenting in St. Maria?" Batman was surprised by the stillness in his own voice. Even his developing rasp had diminished.

Strange halted from his surgery. His head lifted upwards. "No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell." He spread his arms out, palms facing up. Blood dribbled from them and stained his sleeves. He wasn't wearing gloves. "Symbolism. An Augur.

"A Sanatorium may be the most we come to breaching hell. And, yet, it is where the seeds to heaven are sown." Turning to Batman, his wide brow and aquiline profile cast a pool of shadows down his face. "At its erection, the Arkham Sanatorium was the hearth and grave to a unique strain, indigenous to Gotham. In comparison to our pandemic, the Black Death was but a trifling influenza. These very floors flooded with every conceivable bodily secretion. Macabre, but fact. I have a projector back there with reels of physicians wading through a lake of liquefactive necrosis.

"When the world is at its worst, human charity accentuates. As a result of those dismal times, Gotham has conceived innumerable medical marvels and remains infamous to this day for birthing the world's leading minds in the field. A legacy of geniuses. A city of spiritual, as-well-as scientific, transcendence."

Batman thought of the battles he'd fought, the horrors he witnessed on a regular basis, and snarled. "Hell is still thriving in this city. Gotham began as the most promising metropolis of its time. That's what they dubbed our sister city as it was constructed in our shadow; half as a joke and half in hope of achieving more than remaining overshadowed. That plague turned the tables. Gotham has the highest crime rate per capita in the country. Our economy is still reeling."

"Yet, there are those resilient few, slinking through the muck to exploit the turmoil transforming lesser men into beasts, able to rise to the status of kings. Isn't that right," A wild unrestrained smile spread apart Strange's beard, displaying both sets of his small teeth, all identically rounded, even his canines. It was as ill-fitting on the erudite postured man as it was ugly, grim, and condescending. "Bruce Wayne."

Batman had to cognate what he'd been addressed as, before connecting the two dots of his true self, and the costume he hid in that was Bruce Wayne. He said nothing, but that was no doubt response enough to Strange, who kept up his disquieting smile. His child sized teeth sunken within the beard reminded Batman of dissecting owl pellets and unearthing the undigestible small bones of devoured prey.

"I've had my suspicions," Strange continued. "But, being a scientist, I needed proof. Thank you for the verification."

"The vault door," Batman realized. It was as much a trap as it was his single access point.

"Wayne industries installed it themselves."

Batman's confidence and posture matched Strange's. Both had perfected the art of appearing the most in-control person in any room. The two of them in the same room were contradictory. With practiced steps, precise from toe to thigh, the Dark Knight stalked toward his villain. "It won't stop me from arresting you, Hugo. What you've done, it's…" For the first time in his life, Batman realized the phrase 'words cannot describe,' might be true. "Evil. Insane, even. Definitively monstrous."

"Definitively monstrous, to be sure," Strange chuckled thrice. They sounded broken, something wrong with the delivery from brain to voice box. "Yet, pleromatic, sublime, wouldn't you agree?"

Batman reached for his weapons. He readied himself to field test his proprietary Chiropterazor-saw, coiled and sheathed in a hidden compartment at his leg. Again, he recognized how unhinged he'd let his current mission make him.

"If you'd indulge me, Bruce, staying put over there would put me much more at ease whilst sewing up my final alterations to our mutual friend, the lovely miss Kyle."

Behind Strange, Batman brought himself to realize the woman in the table was Bruce Wayne's lover, Selina Kyle, nude, the skin from her neck to naval spread apart, her exhumed heart laying in a dish beside her table. Knives, tongs, blood and pus soaked rags were strewn about, with a frightening absence of any intravenous drips or crucial life support machines.

"You killed her," this time, Batman disturbed himself with the calm hollowness of his voice.

Strange held up a finger to his lips. In the unearthly silence that followed, Batman began picking up on the irenic, tranquil breaths of Selina. He noticed subtle wisps of condensation puffing from her mouth and steam steadily out her torso's organs.

"What's sustaining her?"

Strange turned slow and controlled, before he continued whatever nefarious operation he'd been at. "I'm autonomously reconfiguring her Life-force with my will. As long as I am near or maintain eye-contact, human destinies are my ministration."


	9. Roots in Hell: 3

Batman had no choice but to stay put, hoping whatever alterations Strange was making to Selina, could be undone. He doubted it. Strange had proven himself proficient in the unprecedented. His 'creations' were hundreds of years ahead of their time. "Life-force configuration? Is that your explanation for what you did to the other four? To your partner, non-the-less?"

"Heh," Strange coughed his broken chuckle. "Dr. Langstrom? He was your dear friend, wasn't he Bruce? That's why I crafted him in your image. Don't fret too much about him. Once I told him who Bruce Wayne also was, I couldn't talk him out of becoming a man-bat."

Batman's fists tightened. "And Waylon Jones?"

"His life was succumbing to complications brought on by his atavism and deformities," Strange sighed, longingly. "Please refrain from being deceived like most yahoos that came across him. Jones was a happy man who loved and appreciated life more than most. He was desperate, as the most biologically-normative of us, to cling to life. I not only granted him what he desired, but in abundance. I reformed him with saurian apotheosis."

"I doubt Waylon Jones's current lease on life is half what it was when he was still human," Batman recalled his prolonged fight and capture of the 'Killer Croc,' as Jones had been dubbed by the media. "What about whoever the sap was you fused with a shark, or-" Batman shuddered when he thought of the fourth experiment. A notable reaction, as goosebumps had become an alien sensation to the Dark Knight. Unlike the first three of Strange's 'monster men,' the fourth abomination lacked any parallels with an animal. It had been its own unique take on a monster. To defeat it, Batman had gone to much further lengths than its predecessors. He'd had to-

Before finishing his thought, Strange snapped his fingers, arcing the fresh blood soaking them into the air. "My deiparous magnum opus; your fourth nemesis I sent out to the world, yes. I'll have you forget the particulars about that one. I appreciated your ingenuity in combating that entity. I'd like to see what new plots you devise once it reveals itself again."

Batman stuttered, then tried to remember what he'd been about to say. Nothing came to mind. Whatever dialogue he'd been at eluded him as if he'd said it in a dream only then to awake from. "She doesn't look like the others. She still looks human."

"My colleague challenged me to build a monster on the inside a human, hidden beneath an unaltered, pristine exterior. Our Selina was an obviously beautiful vessel to hide my pandora's box."

"Colleague? I'll take that to mean Dr. Valentin, the plastic surgeon you collaborated with during Dr. Quinzel's rehabilitation."

Another snap from Strange spouted another spray of Selina's blood off his fingers. Batman felt some thought in his head slide out of his memory.

"I'll redact you connecting me to Lazlo. We'll keep him behind the scenes until he decides to enter the fray. You were saying?"

Batman had lost his train of thought too thoroughly to say anything in response.

"I'm sure there's a question searing your mind. You should ask me." Strange examined a new heart from somewhere Batman hadn't noticed a heart was. He held it in the light before placing it between Selina's opened ribs.

"Why?" Batman asked.

Strange began pressing ribs back down, issuing the sound of bones rubbing against each other. "I peered into their souls to perceive their dreams, Bruce. So I facilitated them."

"What about the guards here? What did you do? The doctors and orderlies too? They don't seem to be in a trance, but there's no rational reason for any of them to be defending you from the police."

Selina's muscle and skin were folded back into their places. "Hypnotism. I do apologize for that one, Bruce. It will be hell for them and the police to sort this all out."

"No suturing?" Batman saw the lines on Selina where she had just been vivisected begin to fade without any scars.

Strange turned to face Batman again. Interlocking his fingers, he stretched them in his arms forward, popping the knuckles. "If she could be obviously identified as altered, that would defeat her purpose."

"You have a lot to answer for, Strange," Batman, taking out a pair of handcuffs, advanced again toward the doctor.

"I'm not going with you, Bruce."

Batman menacingly clenched a fist. "You plan on fighting me?"

The look in Strange's eye as he looked Batman up and down was jovially unimpressed. "This is your limit, Bruce. Your body is battered. Your brain is failing from rejecting sleep. Those drugs in your system have run their course and begun to recoil."

Thinking better of his plan of action, Batman tossed down the handcuffs, clattering them across the floor. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. "Regardless, my money's on me."

Strange shook his head with a toothless grin on his face. "There was a fifth project I completed, before our Selina. He hasn't joined the fun yet, as his process necessitated more time for his maturation."

A noise groaned out from one of the dark off-shooting tunnels. _Clicks_ and _clacks_ grew louder as something crawled near the light. Before whatever the monstrosity was revealed itself, a giant gush of wind blasted from where it came, causing Batman to balance himself on reflex. The tools on the operating table flew into the air and Strange's cravat blew out of his collar. The dredges of Selina's blood that hadn't stained to his clothes blustered off and into the air like red dandelion seeds.

"No doubt," Strange said, once the burst of wind had passed to echo down further tunnels. "You are up to the task of fighting me. But how will you fair against another monster?"

The fringe of an appendage, itself as large as the Dark Knight, approached and stopped at the edges of the light. Long white hairs jutting from the appendage were all that were visible by exiting the tunnel's shadows. Behind these were several luminesce orbs of various sizes.

"My first several creations you fought," Strange continued. "Had undergone a metamorphosis. This experiment was farther reaching than any of his predecessors. In his first transformation, I crafted him into a larvae. Then, already a monster, he reconstructed himself into a second chrysalis. Now, he comes out from a second metamorphoses."

Batman sighed. A monster, just like Jones or Langstrom, but that had again become even more monstrous. During those earlier fights, Batman had been fully equipped, prepared with specific traps, and far less fatigued…

 _Non-the-less—_

He was Batman. It went without saying he would win. He snapped into a fighting stance and whipped the Chiropterazor into his hand. It was essentially a circle that, upon initiating, telescoped out a baton. Batman squeezed the trigger several times, causing the internal wire to whir around.

Strange waved as he walked away into the tunnel opposite the entrance.

Several thin, hairy, spindly legs, more than twice the length of Batman, some still with human like articulated toes at the bottoms, softly padded out of the monster's tunnel. With these, the giant creature drug itself out to be exposed.

Its face was hard to make any semblance out of. Mandibles were off to the side, while other mouth-resembling structures and orifices also hung open, leaking mass amounts of viscous fluids. Shimmering compound eyes winked all around the head and what worked as a neck. Ship sail sized moth-wings stretched out and palsied rather than fluttered.

Batman held the trigger on his weapon, causing it to shoot the vibrating wire around the baton. Sharper than a razor with more torque than a chainsaw. Hopefully it wouldn't break in his hand and barrage him with piercing debris. He took a long, deep breath that almost forced him into a coughing fit.

More and more of the creature entered the room. It towered over Batman, forcing him to crane his neck. Larger, longer, stronger legs slithered into view. Many were barbed like preying-mantis claws. These oozed occasional globules of dark-red venom that fell to the ground sizzling, and ate at the cast iron floor.

Batman placed a hand over his grapple gun. Might be saner to make a run for it.


	10. Roots in Hell: 4

The abomination screeched. If Batman's helmet hadn't had the option of cancelling noise, he was sure he would have gone deaf or been stricken with serious tinnitus. The monster flapped its giant moth wings again. This time, Batman was thrown off his feet and knocked backwards. It would have been worse had his cape not been parceled away.

Forcing himself back up, he began pumping at his weapon's trigger again, after the veritable tornado had rattled it into shutting it off.

The moth-monster's mandibles clacked and more steaming foam came out of its mouths as a deep, whining moan escaped out what sounded to be several throats. The noise merely reminiscent of words. It could only be heard as sad and deranged.

Half of its legs sprung up above its head, ready to strike, despite being cramped inside the tall room. Dozens of sharp ended, extremely acidic dripping spears, all aimed at one man.

 _This is it._

Batman crouched, held down the trigger of the Chiropterazor-saw, readying for his counter-attack.

The multitude of insectoid, weaponized limbs bucked then whipped out, each with loud crack.

Fast, but possible to dodge. Not too many legs to conceivably avoid. However, both those factors combined could only end badly…

The giant moth-creature screeched again, twice, then thrice as loud as it had before. The floor and walls vibrated as though during an earthquake. Batman's hand went limp and released the trigger of his weapon, causing it to wind down and collapse back into itself.

The moth had used all its legs to impale its own compound eyes. Thick black liquid drained out of the head. As the legs yanked away with force, the head exploded outwards, coating the walls and Batman, who'd flung himself over Selina's body, with chunks of dribbling viscera.

The giant body, or as much of it as had crammed into the Sanatorium, collapsed. Lifeless.

Batman was off, sprinting down the tunnel after Hugo Strange.

He shot his grapple gun and began flying after his prey.

—-

Batman swung out of the tunnel and into a large area filled with rows on glass tanks big enough to comfortably fit human bodies into. Turning up the sensitivity on his ears, he could pick up soft footfalls moving at a hurried pace.

Moments later, Batman was in the air, looking down on Strange. He'd done the swooping down in front of the criminal move so many times it had become rote and seamless to execute. This time, as Batman landed before Strange, instead of gracefully pivoting to face the rogue, his legs gave out, causing him to roll ungracefully into a glass tank. A crystalline crack shattered up its surface.

Strange stopped to stare.

Batman made to get up, and failed. His vision had begun to swim.

He was able to stand in his third attempt. It took all his energy to stay up. Each breath was fought for.

"Look at you. You can barely stand, Bruce." Strange's voice was soft, sympathetic. "Do you know what destiny awaits you if you keep bringing yourself to this point?"

"Shut up," Batman's voice had lost all traces of its former eerie calm. "Shut your fucking mouth or I'll break it off."

"A man who has a profound love for monsters," Strange spoke quietly enough Batman had to keep his enhanced hearing activated. "And I don't only refer to my creations. Before I began my work, there was your counterpart, whom you cherish. The pale harbinger.

"So how is it you hate me so much."

The growl Batman's voice had devolved into stung his throat as he spoke. "You ask me that, with a women's blood dried all over you? An innocent you turned into a monster?"

Strange nodded once. "I see. You feel you can sympathize with a monster, because you became one. But I, I am the transference of your parent's murderer. Like Joe Chill, I twist innocents into demons. So that's how you see things…"

Something began to change while Strange stood there. At first, it was hard to make out what was happening, other than the appearance of his clothes rippling, despite the stagnant air. A crisp crackling noise grew into a shuffling of a myriad of small things, like hearing a horde of ants walking over sand.

Selina's dried blood weaved its way out of Strange's suit and began crawling over him and up his right arm to his hand. As it all drained from the cloth it collected into a tiny ball of scabbed blood. Turning his hand slightly, it fell to the ground and smushed into a dry splat. No traces of the blood stains remained on Strange's clothes.

"How?" Batman finally had to ask, decorum be damned. "How is any of what you're doing real?"

Strange pulled at his coat, straightening it. "Reality is a matter of subjective perception. Awake, we question reality as much as we do in dreams, so why do we bother differentiating the two so much? If dreams are not the biggest hint to the question of existence, than we have no hints." He trailed off at the end, as if the explanation had caused him to think of other things.

"I'm going to kill you," Batman realized as he said it.

"You're weak, Bruce. Your mind is taking you places you'd never go."

Batman slowly shook his head. "I'm lucid enough."

"You don't want to do that, Bruce."

"I do. That's why I'm going to do it."

Batman held up his small electric knife. By design, the blade itself was not meant to deal very much damage. Just enough to penetrate the skin to release a shock of temporarily debilitating pain. Even thrown into Strange's eye wouldn't kill the man. It would bring him down for Batman to walk over and snap his neck.

Hugo Strange's glasses shimmered the light of far off bulbs as he shifted his head. Batman threw the knife.

Strange's movements had no impression of a man specifically trained to be effective in a fight, but every motion in his body, even as he walked, or gestured, had a natural grace to the point it looked perfected, down to his finger tips. No movement wasted. When he lifted his hand in front of his face and caught the knife by the handle, causing the small discharge of electricity to glow in his face, it looked like he'd done it accidentally. He hadn't flinched or rushed his arm to defend his face. The hand simply appeared at the exact place it needed to be, in the exact moment necessary.

He tossed the knife aside. "I want to help you too, Bruce. Your set destiny is be grim and crushingly lonesome. It becomes worse for everybody if you kill me, though the odds for you bringing yourself down that path are the lowest."

With a shout of rage, Batman threw his flash grenade at Strange's face.

In a leap that somehow looked more austere than athletic, both Strange's feet were off the ground. He met the grenade halfway in its arc to where it was intended to explode. In one swing of his arm, he caught the projectile and threw it away down the room with enough speed and force to make a major league baseball pitcher jealous.

The grenade went off yards away as Strange fell into a crouch. He adjusted his glasses. The giant glass tanks lit up like light bulbs for a brief moment.

"Stop attacking me," Strange said with authority.

Batman already had a bola in his hand. As he made to throw it, his arm locked. He tried throwing it again. Again, his arm seized up.

"Open your mask."

Batman released the secret latches for the mask section of the helmet. The right side clicked, and a small crevice opened, waiting for the entire piece to be opened like a cupboard.

Strange lifted his hand with all fingers pointing to Batman's head. "Changing a patient's destiny is most effective if I make contact with the head. I want you to find peace, Bruce. You deserve to be happy."

Batman's thoughts raced. His arm with the bola dropped to his side. None of his weapons would be effective. His shaking fists were as good as removed, for how much he could use them to fight Strange, or defend himself against the madman. Batman thought over his arsenal, his surroundings, anything he could say to Strange to prevent the man from lobotomizing him.

He drew a blank.


	11. Roots in Hell: 5

Batman couldn't run; he struggled to move at all.

Batman's hand brushed against something at his belt. Something he'd forgotten about, which was rare enough to worry him. He couldn't even remember what he'd planned on using it for. But, thinking back, he did recall how much he'd risked to acquire it.

Dressed as Bruce Wayne, he'd stolen a dangerous experiment from his own company. It had cost the job of the developer for having lost it. The company assumed the doctor had forgotten to follow the proper lock-up procedures, as there were zero signs of a break in.

The fact Batman couldn't recall what he'd brought it along for, and why it had been important enough to steal led him to believe his memory had been altered. Strange was proving he had some trick that allowed him to mess with Batman's mind.

But why would Strange have made Batman half forget about the compound? Perhaps Strange had altered or deleted some other specific memory that just happened to relate to the compounds purpose.

Was there a weakness Batman had discovered that Strange had made him forget?

Strange closed the distance to being a foot away from Batman.

There was only time to make one move, and his best move was a gamble. Batman reflected he'd never had worse odds. He checked again to see if he could run. His legs locked in place. He made to punch Strange's face through his head, only for his fist to relax itself against his will.

 _Time to take the gamble._

Batman's hand went to the valve to release the toxin. His fingers wouldn't let him. He cursed under his breath, then closed his eyes and forced himself calm.

 _"Stop attacking me,"_ Batman remembered Strange's exact command.

 _Fine. I won't attack you._

Strange caressed the side of Batman's face and gingerly felt the crease in the mask. He pulled it open.

Batman focused. He couldn't just trick himself, he had to believe he was doing what he was trying to do.

The two men stood face to face.

Strange grinned at Batman's exposed face. "Hello, Bruce."

There was no longer anything filtering Batman's air or protecting him from breathing in any gas. Or fear toxin.

He released the valve, convincing himself he was only dosing _himself_ with the toxin.

A dark grey, almost blue gas hissed around them, enveloping them in a cloud of fear toxins.

Strange began hacking into his fist and backed away. Batman snapped his mask back shut. He'd been able to hold his breath, but some of the toxin had trapped in his mask as he'd closed it.

Batman didn't feel any of the effects as the air around them cleared.

For the first time, Strange staggered. Through his mask of absolute authority he'd molded his face into, a tincture of confusion took root and began to grow into fear.

"What did you do?" Strange's voice began to crack. "It's not… It's not possible. How did you discover what I'd done to myself?"

Batman attempted to reply, before falling down on his ass as the world shimmered with danger. He stayed sitting, knowing the small dose of toxin in his system would be making him feel more tense. Remembering his training, he brought himself into a state of relaxation, and counted his breaths.

"Do you have any idea," Strange sounded less and less like himself, as his baritone voice whined into a howl. The immaculate doctor began sounding more indecorous than some of Arkham's inmates. "What I went through to obtain the _stone!?_ The merciless trials I surmounted?"

Strange's glasses fell to the floor as the man crawled away from Batman while squeezing at his face. His face began to replace with more wrinkles and crevices than Batman had seen in one person's entire body. The mouth peeled back in horror. Flecks of spit flew from his mouth as he whined, "Where on earth did you find a counter-agent? I thought you were simply a man, yet you can battle the arcane?"

Tears poured from Strange's eyes. He fell to his hands and knees. His entire body retched in reaction to his convulsing stomach. A confluence of liquid and small pebbles spewed from his mouth and splatted and clacked to the floor. More liquid continued streaming out, pooling around Strange. As the liquid reached Batman's feet, the source became fiery red. Batman squinted, wondering how effected his sight was by the hallucinogens.

The vomiting slowed to a trickle, as Strange choked on something. A crimson effulgence shifted out his mouth. With a violent cough he ejected a hard object from his throat. Falling from his mouth, suspended by a gooey drip that made it move as if in slow motion, was a misshapen gemstone radiating an eldritch red glow.

It was the solemn glow of a red star spotted in the night sky masked by a light midnight fog. It shined with the anger of a dying ember doused into dead ash by water.

It _plinked_ off the floor, and landed soft in the amassing fluids drained out of Strange.

As he reached for it, Batman stood and threw a Batarang. The stone was struck, and shattered like glass. Once dashed to pieces, the fragments lost their incandescence and became a dull grey.

Strange stared in disbelief.

Batman thought he may have picked up a whimper, before he tackled Strange, lifting the man to slam him into a large metal scaffold around a glass tank.

All the fight had left Strange. Batman felt reinvigorated. He zip-tied Strange's arms to the metal bars, feet above the ground, leaving his body to sag, torturously held up by the wrists. Thinking better of it, Batman also zip-tied each foot to separate bars, giving Strange slightly better support.

Batman turned back to go help Selina.

"Bruce," Strange had calmed, but sounded pitifully vulnerable. "Don't twist yourself into a monster. Your strength is not in your power, but your compassion. Your passion stems not from hate, but love. The beast in you craves blood, but the man knows there to be a better way."

Batman stopped, his back to the strung up man. "Hypocrite. You're really going to say those words?"

"A man can not transcend until he's confronted his own monstrous nature. My experiments have a long way to go, but you have been living in hell far longer than enough. I wanted to help you find your way to heaven."

Turning back to face Strange, Batman removed and tested his razor-saw. A strong warm feeling imbued his arm as the weapon vibrated. "I'll show you how goddam monstrous I can be."

His free hand fished into his med-packs for several tourniquets.


	12. Roots in Hell: 6

_Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured._

-Mark Twain

Gordon ignored an impulse to adjust the glasses that weren't on his face. He'd worn the contacts so he could don the gasmask. He checked the Arkham guards being cuffed with his peripherals. His focus was holding his gun to Jeremiah Arkham's back as the man led him down the Asylum toward the secret lair.

"I assure you," the asylum director said, sounding authentically nervous. "You don't need the gun."

"I'll believe you," Jim's voice had an odd echo to it from the mask. "When I can believe anything that's happened tonight. Now move your ass."

Jeremiah brought him to the vault door.

"Now open it," Gordon ordered.

As the numbers were punched in and the director's palm read, Gordon entered. Turning to Jeremiah, he said, "Don't close this on me. There's a Batman down here that wouldn't take kindly to that."

And Gordon took off into the old tunnel. He entered the Sanatorium. Lit by the final sparks flickering from a fallen and shattered flood light was a mass of flesh draining ichor as if from a spout.

Gordon straddled against the other side of the room facing the giant thing, squinting, trying to make sense of what it was. If not for the gasmask, he would have noted the ichor reaching his toes and rising past his soles filled the room with a strong stench of blood.

As he reached the tunnel opposite the one he'd entered, as it was the only one with lights at the far end, he raised his gun to the monstrosity draped with giant soft looking sheets. It had been a weird last couple weeks. Too many monsters, too few answers, and the deaths were stacking up.

He emptied a magazine on whatever the abomination was. It gave the distinct impression of already being dead, but Gordon wasn't risking his recent recurring nightmare of being eaten alive coming true.

 _Well, that settles that_ , Gordon thought. It had been weeks of being forced to work with the Batman to capture the "monster men" and corner their maker. His nerves were fraying thinner than his jean shorts from highschool he'd still occasionally don to do yard work or paint the fence at home. After consuming several bulk orders of tums and pepto-bismo, and an uncomfortable intervention from Detective Bullock, he'd promised to adhere to an ultimatum. Once this case was over, it was between ditching the cigarettes… or signing up for counseling.

No counselor could even fathom this shit. Maybe, if he ditched the cigarettes, for good this time, and cooled it with the booze, he'd get clear headed enough to bury all the nonsense with the monsters deep enough to forget. Probably.

Either way, he was not going to risk his career so some schmuck with a fake job could waste his time trying to make him talk about his problems.

Gordon removed his flashlight to help with the paltry illumination promised down the tunnel he headed through. Something in his gut told Gordon there were more casualties where he was headed.

Seeing the giant glass jar looking things made him gulp. He could imagine what they were intended to be filled with. And there were so many of the tanks.

A dim green light rebounded around and off the glass, giving Gordon the impression of a cheesy horror movie where the hero had to walk into the hall of mirrors that was obviously a trap.

 _How was it the villain always had such a fundamental understanding of how the distorted mirrors worked, while the hero was completely oblivious?_

Cursing the mask, wishing he could enjoy one final smoke, he forced his feet to seek the twisting refractions to their source. A minute later, he found the green flare at its last few sputters at the feet of the Batman sitting with his head slouched down and back to a glass jar.

As Gordon eased his gun down and hunched over, his feet splashing again in some liquid he'd rather not know too much about, he noticed a chink in the other side of Batman's mask. The mask was a quarter inch open.

Gordon crouched down facing Batman. The vigilante looked like he was sleeping. Made sense. Batman was the only person pushing himself harder than Gordon for this case. But, making sense or not, thinking about the Batman sleeping was a hard pill to swallow. There was some superhuman quality to Batman. Sleeping just seemed so _ordinary_ a thing to find him at.

This would be his only opportunity to unmask the Batman. Gordon could demystify the whole facade. Could hold something over the vigilante, even. Or, it could quench that curiosity nibbling away at the detective in him.

Gordon put his hand to Batman's mask and pushed. It clicked shut.

The head lifted, excruciatingly slow.

"Jim," Batman said. He sounded so unlike his normal, severe and dangerous self. It was the same gruff, tired, eternally wounded and vengeful voice, but deflated to sounding like a weak impression of the Dark Knight. "Keep the mask on."

Gordon silently gasped. _Had he known I'd almost demasked him_?

"It's probably safe now, but there was fear toxin in the air."

 _Right_ , Gordon remembered he was wearing a mask too.

"Jim," Batman repeated. "I'm sorry."

 _Damnit. Anything but that._ "Did he get away?"

Batman's veiled eyes met Gordon's. "No," Batman said, before looking over Gordon's shoulder.

Gordon stood up and turned around. Their suspect was there, his head hanging down matching the posture Batman had when Gordon had arrived. Hugo Strange was tied to a series of metal bars. In addition, cords were drawn tight enough to cut off all circulation at Strange's upper thighs and his shoulders.

Fallen to the ground below Strange were the man's arms and legs.

Gordon felt his mouth had dropped open, but couldn't bring himself to close it. Something made a noise behind him.

Batman had half risen and was finding as much support as he could against the glass with one hand.

 _He's too weak to scurry off before we can question him, as is his MO._

He lowered his head and shook it once. He grabbed Batman's arm and put it over his shoulder. Gordon huffed under the weight, but walked Batman toward the exit.

They walked past the jars in silence.

They said nothing as they limped through the tunnel, into the sanatorium, made a wide berth around the dead monster, and drew near the vaulted entrance.

"He's still alive, right," Gordon finally asked.

Batman nodded.

"There was some mind altering toxin released?"

Batman nodded again.

"We found some of the psychos out of their cells wandering around," Gordon stopped at the door to catch his breath. "Strange is scum, but it's still too bad a violent patient found him, got dosed by a weaponized drug, and hacked away at the doctor. That is, until you arrived, just in time, and like you always do, saved the villain's life, applying some emergency tourniquets to his stubs."

Batman waited to catch a few more breaths before saying for the third time,"Jim-"

"Stop," Gordon interrupted. "This nightmare never would have ended without your help." He readjusted Batman's arm on his shoulders, and made his way to their exit. "We're getting you outta' this hellhole."


	13. Entr'acte: 1

**Interlude**

 _Takes place between the timeframes of Extinction Burst and Accurate Empathy._

* * *

Bruce opened his door and looked down. It was a short young woman with purple hair, piercings everywhere, and tattooed wings flowing from under her collar and reaching her cheek. Her stance and face looked stuck in a state of fiery defiance, and she remained glaring up with strong willful eyes. He thought he might have recognized her.

"I didn't buzz you through the gate," he said.

"Heh," her laugh was condescending. "Please. Richest guy in Gotham and you can't afford better security?"

"My security system is some of the best money can buy."

She shrugged. "Well, whatever. It still saved me time to override the system than try over an intercom to convince some douchebag why he should let me talk to him."

Bruce leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. "Is there something you wanted from me? Because, so far, the foot you're starting off on…"

She looked down for the first time and scratched the back of her neck. "I, uh, came to see you because, somebody needs your help."

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "Somebody needs my help?"

"You're Bruce Wayne, aren't you?"

Bruce nodded, still confused. "Ya. So?"

The woman stepped forward and began squeezing past Bruce. "You gonna' let me in or not?"

Sighing, Bruce moved aside and issued her inside. "It's polite to at least introduce yourself."

She scoffed at the word 'polite.' "Harper," she said.

—-

Bruce sat at his lunching table examining the strange woman consuming the snacks he'd had the staff scrounge up.

"Goddamn," she said, opening her full mouth with willful abandon. "That's a huge fuckin' backyard."

After hearing Harper's name, he'd recalled she was a persona Batman was familiar with. Harper Row from the narrows, alias Bluebird. Occupationally a hacker. Notably she served as the Joker's chief groupie and did any of the work he needed doing on a computer. With her skills she could have worked for the FBI or ran Google.

 _A brilliant mind trapped by shitty circumstances, giving birth to a feral nature ill-equipped for working for others, and a distorted set of principles._

Of course, Bruce Wayne had only just met her.

"Thanks," Bruce answered, taking a swig of black coffee.

She scowled as she looked around at how big the house was. "You horde so much for yourself, while there's so little for the rest of us."

Bruce gave no indication he disagreed, but also did nothing to encourage her sentiment. "If I recall, you came to me asking for help. I'm more than willing to help you however I can."

That set something off in Harper. Her face reddened. "I never said I 'need' help. And I don't, for anything, ever. Least of all from some schmoozing socialite, bourgeoisie elitist like you."

Bruce would have smiled, had he not suspected that would have pushed Harper over the edge. After all, he had implied it was her herself that needed to be helped, with the intention of needling her a bit. "You said somebody does need my help. Who would that be?"

Harper wiped her mouth with her sleeve and looked out the window. "Do you know the difference between good and evil?"

"I believe I do," Bruce said, choosing not to mince words.

"How would you define 'evil?'"

"Unmitigated pain. Inordinate suffering."

"You grew up in a palace, Bruce," Harper looked Bruce dead in the eye. "But have you ever been on the receiving end of evil?"

In an almost Batman-serious tone, Bruce replied, "I have witnessed first hand the worst conceivable acts of subhuman evil. After receiving my first degree at seventeen, I left to travel the world, working on humanitarian projects for the next ten years. If the human mind is capable of conceiving of it, I've seen it."

Several moments of silence followed. Harper looked Bruce over to discern how literal he was being.

Bruce looked dead serious.

"I've been tracking the movements of an underground dog fighting ring in inner-city Gotham."

That took Bruce by surprise. Harper looked just as serious as she had when she broached the topic of evil. Although, he caught a flinch in her face he took to mean she fully expected him to laugh her off. "Report it to the police," he took another casual sip of coffee.

"I… can't."

"Don't you have evidence?" Bruce asked.

"Sorta'," she said.

 _None acquired legally_ , Bruce induced. "You can still go to the police and report it."

Harper threw her arms up at that. "Are you kidding me? The cops are either too busy extorting us in the narrows, giving foot massages to the Batman, or wasting their time playing hide-and-go-seek with the Joker."

"Wasting their time with the Joker?" Bruce wondered how much time the police would save in their man hunts if it weren't for Bluebird's relentless electronic false trails, pitfalls, and general assaults on their systems. "He's a murderer."

Harper blew the sentiment off. "He's dangerous, but he's not a psychopath like they paint him out to be. He's a revolutionary."

"I remember a particularly provocative stunt of his," Bruce downed the remains of his coffee, and looked out the window, mirroring the contemplative air of Harper's from a minute earlier. "There was a famously outspoken hate-group church in the suburbs part of town. They'd be found all over with their 'god-hates-' signs to funerals, weddings… I think a couple personal residences they harassed too.

"The Joker took the church over with a few of his usual goons, himself waving around a pitchfork and torch. He forced their minister to marry them all into same sex groupings. After that, he tattooed their favorite word on their foreheads, and literally branded that slur to their asses."

Harper sat there in a sort of daze. Batman had compared dates and sifted through the data. Right after the event at the church, Bluebird had begun meddling in police work to benefit the Joker. Shortly after that the Joker had found and hired her.

It looked like she was about to get up and dash away.

"What do you want me to do?" Bruce asked.

"I've been watching you," Harper sighed into her seat. "You've done some good in Gotham. For real, non skimming off the top, good. A lot more so than your two-faced friends in the upper crust, I can tell you that. So I believe you might be persuaded to do what it takes to help.

"Also, I noticed you've been doing some consultation work for the cops?"

Bruce convincingly chuckled. "I've always read too much detective fiction. I simply inform the police whenever I see some interesting connection or something in a case I think might help them. Researching criminals is a little hobby I have on the side."

Harper nodded. "Think you can turn up some dirt on these animal abusing fuckwads?"

—-

Bruce had disguised himself as a rather hirsute man with poor posture that had an embarrassing amount of enthusiasm watching animals kill each other. People usually liked to ignore those that embarrassed themselves.

He walked over to the bookie and had to yell over the snarls in the ring and the jeers booming around it. "Five-hundred on the grey one. That one's a goddamn monster. Who's mutt is that anyways?"

Subtlety would be wasted here. With the kind of crime in Gotham, no one connected to the law gave a damn about some dog ring. They were as afraid of the cops busting in as they would be over a stolen pack of gum.

As he continued collecting information, a strange realization crossed Bruce's mind. He'd done this kind of disguised infiltration work before, but always as part of Batman's investigations. At the end of this mission, it would be Bruce Wayne turning the criminals in with real undercover work completed.

It was the first time he could remember doing something like this without the safety net of knowing, if he failed to do it by the books, Batman could always swing by later, knock some sense into the crooks and release the dogs into the street.

Which brought him to wondering why he was doing this in the first place. He didn't care about animals, did he? Certainly not enough to risk his life, which he kind of was.

Was it because he was actually trying to help Harper Row? Because one person as screwed up as that girl was, probably wasn't worth the time and energy he was dedicating to a mission she'd devised, and in the end wouldn't help her in the way Bruce wanted. He could achieve far more good by throwing money toward her area in the narrows to clean things up, reforming her environment.

He didn't have time to help Harper.

His hands were full enough already. Mainly with the Joker…

Was that why he was sticking his neck out for the hacker? Her connection to the Joker? Did Batman somehow think he could use Harper to his advantage in reaching the Joker?

Or, maybe, he was helping Harper and the dogs because it had been the first time anyone had ever truly asked for Bruce Wayne's help…

—-

Bruce Wayne, dressed as Bruce Wayne, walked along the kennels and pens, taking in the garrulous barking drowning out the arrests.

Young officer Canfield ran over, keeping a suspicious eye on the dogs gnashing at their cages, fear of a possible escape readable across his face.

"Is anyone here missing who should be arrested?" Canfield yelled over the turmoil.

Bruce shook his head.

"Well, that pretty much raps things up here," Canfield sounded anything but enthused. From his point of view, Bruce had just piled more needless busy work onto his plate. Closing down dog fighting rings was below his lowest priorities, and he'd probably be laughed at more than applauded at the station.

Bruce extended a hand to the officer. "Thanks again. Let me know if I can ever repay the favor."

Davidson took the handshake and grimaced, before trudging off to help with the arrests.

Shortly after, a tubby man with a dog-catcher stick was issued Bruce's way.

"I couldn't get ahold of the DRC to take them in," Bruce informed the man. "Any idea what's going to happen to the animals?"

The man gave a half-smile half-frown, and said in a consolatory tone, "We'll see if any of 'em are ok around humans, but really, most are likely going to have to be put down."

Bruce nodded and walked over to a cage. In the corner was a grey, mud caked dog with visible ribs, but strong twitching leg muscles. A steady growl permeated from its mouth. The entire body vibrated as if it were freezing to death. Its tail and ears had been roughly cropped short, but the right ear had been bitten even shorter.

He'd completed Harper's mission. She should be grateful. The criminals, though most would suffer no more than a slap on the wrist, would need to deal with a substantial loss of resources, as the dogs would be taken away and would no longer be used to copulate more mistreated spawn.

 _Ending the samsara of despair_ , The Joker might say.

In his mind, Bruce predicted Harper blaming him for not doing enough. She'd asked him to help the dogs, and he was seeing them put to death. He didn't know what Harper hated more, the rich selfish douche she saw him as, or needing to ask for his help.

His fist clenched. He'd done way more than the average person would, for no gain to himself. Harper could go fuck herself if she wanted to find a way to blame him for something.

He reached to the latch and opened the cage.

"Whoa, what the hell are you doing?" The tubby man asked, and prepared his dog-catcher.

"Easy," Bruce told him as he stepped into the grey dog's cage.

He eased in and creaked to his haunches. The dog began barking.

Bruce put out his hand to calm it down. He willed his eyes to tell the tortured creature that everything was ok now.

The dog's barking turned more into a whimper, seemingly reassured. With no warning, it lashed out and charged Bruce. He put his arm out to defend himself. The dog chomped down.

"Holy-" the tubby man shouted, and made a move toward the dog.

Bruce looked over, slowly and gingerly, as if any movement could activate a bomb, he looked at the man and put an open palm his way. "Easy," he reassured.

He looked back at the dog, tearing into his arm, releasing blood into his shredding sleeve. How much had he spent on that black designer coat? Over $5,000?

His fist relaxed. He inhaled long, slow breaths. Keeping eye contact on the dog, it relaxed its maw but didn't let go.

Bruce placed his hand on the dogs neck and eased it up. With enough power and confidence displayed, the dog let go and ran back to the corner to continue with its constant growling.

Bruce exited the cage and latched it back closed.

Looking to the chubby man, he shook his head in disbelief of what he was doing, and said, "I'll make it worth your while if you transport these dogs to my address. They're moving into Wayne Manor."

—-

Wayne Manor's front door could be heard opening and closing. Bruce placed his book down on his arm chair as he stood up.

Bruce walked into his entrance hall to see his driver, Javier, with Harper swiveling her head up and around at the his fixtures.

"Harper, what a pleasant surprise," Bruce said.

"That was the first time I've ever ridden inside a limo," she said, still looking around. "As a kid, we used to throw piss filled water balloons at them. Extra point if you made it through the sun roof."

Javier rolled his eyes and exited the room.

Harper looked down at Bruce. "You sent your goon to wait outside my place with that ridiculous car to inform me I was wanted at your 'manor?' I don't appreciated being fucking man handled. Or your weird power displays of 'subtlety' threatening me by letting me know you know where I live. Creep."

"Sorry," Bruce said. "We'll come up with a more suitable form of transportation for the next time. Also, it wasn't intended as a threat. I just know how to use google."

It was hard to see the human under the shell of stand-offishness Harper layered herself with. "What do you mean next time?"

Bruce walked to the lunch room. It took a few seconds before Harper followed.

As she entered, she saw the assortment of tools and things strewn over the lunching table. "I don't- what the hell?"

"Look out the window," Bruce said.

Harper looked out to a slightly different view than the one she'd admired weeks earlier. "What's with the fenced off area? Oh! Oh my god."

She watched as each of the dogs ran around in there individual, spacious fenced in areas, or inside their own shed sized dog houses.

Mirth found its way through Harper's hardened features. "You did it." She stared at the dogs. "You're caring for all of them?"

"Until they're adopted," Bruce said, joining Harper's stare. "But they're all pretty emotionally damaged. They've been kicked around their entire lives and forced to do things they hated doing."

A hand hovered over Harper's mouth. An unconscious defensive gesture meant to mask her emotions.

"But they're strong. They'll bounce back; all of them," Bruce looked over at the transfixed young woman. "After you teach them they can be happy and loved."

Harper jolted around to stare at Bruce, a partial shock overcoming her. "After I do what?"

Bruce crossed his arms. "I did my part. I saved the dogs, just like you'd asked. The rest is your responsibility."

"But, but," Harper noticed what the objects cluttered across the lunch table were. Leashes, harnesses, protective ware for humans, dog food, dog treats… "I'm not going to- I don't know anything about how to care of fighting dogs."

"It's easy," Bruce said. "Just very, very time consuming. Time I can't afford to spend. I got you everything you need. I even have some local experts that can come here and work with you, teaching you what you need to know. I'm sure you know how to do your own research online, too. But, really, you'll find the dogs will mirror however you treat them.

"Those men that were arrested had to work hard against the dog's natures. Dogs don't want to hurt each other or humans. You'll need to give them what they inherently desire; compassion and support.

"Come on, today you'll introduce yourself to them. Touching or going in with them will come later, when they're ready."

Harper gulped in resignation. She followed Bruce outside toward the fences. Her face hardened as the din of barking dogs rose.

If she accepts to come back, Bruce thought, that's when I'll let her know she's getting paid for this.

A warmness itched at the edged of Harper's face as she crouched by a fence and watched a spotted dog acting like it had no clue what to do with being watched like that. Sadness crinkled around her eyes.

"I guess I made my bed," Harper mumbled. "Next time just send an Uber to my place."

Bruce grinned.

—-

Bruce sat at the lunch table across from Alfred, who'd been his parents butler but acted as a live-in relative in the mansion and a confidant to Batman, sipping their coffee and tea. They watched Harper running around with the dogs, finally healthy enough to roam free from their fences; supervised, of course.

Javier entered and tossed a small paper bag to Bruce. Bruce finished the coffee and stood up.

"Are you absolutely sure about this, Mr. Wayne?" Alfred asked.

Bruce shrugged. "We both know I've always been a risk taker. Besides, I thought you were the one that taught me that, for us to grow, other's must entrust their risks upon us. It will be good for her."

"I suppose," Alfred said, trailing off as he returned to reading the paper. "Just remember, it was technically my house longer than it's been yours."

Before he exited, Bruce turned his head back to Alfred. "Actually, that's not true anymore. It was entrusted to you after they died, when I was ten. I left Gotham at seventeen and returned at twenty-five. That's fifteen years. We just passed the date they died and I'm forty now." He went outside.

Harper waved at Bruce as he walked over. She met him half way.

She looked down curiously at the bag he handed her. "The hell is this?"

"I'm tired of answering the door for you."

Shaking the bag caused a key to fall into Harper's awaiting palm. Her eyebrow cocked all the way up at him. "Seriously?" She asked like a joke was being played at her expense.

"You broke in the first time you came here. Jimmying a door or window can't be much harder. If you wanted to break in, you always could, so I'm not exactly risking anything I wasn't already. This is just to make my life easier."

She squeezed the key and looked away. "So it's not that you trust me, it's that you don't trust me?"

Bruce looked directly at her eyes. "Obviously it's because I trust you, Harper. You're a good-" person, he thought would be helpful for him to say to her. He wanted to let her know she was a person worthy of trust, a person who didn't have to feel she was only good enough to be a criminal. But, what did he _feel_ like he _wanted_ to say? "Friend."

Harper didn't respond to that. It didn't look like she knew how.

As Bruce walked back to his house, he half turned around. "Oh, one quick thing. If you steal from me, just make sure it's only as much as you need. Well, maybe a little extra. But no more than I'd notice is missing.

"And be absolutely double sure you don't steal anything Alfred would miss."

He caught her baffled look before he turned to head back inside.


	14. Accurate Empathy: 1

_In the Present…_

* * *

He tugged at the fake beard and patted at the bald cap, double checking the disguise was sticking together, as well as trying to get a decent scratch in. The disguise was holding up, but there was no quelling the itchiness.

Stalking through inner-Gotham city, tapping his red and white cane on the trash littered sidewalk, he sought his prey down the next alley devoid of intact lights. He removed his shades and quit tapping the cane, putting an end to his blind act. No one along that path would be sober enough to take much note of him.

Shouts could be heard through windows and down the street. Some club blasted discordant music, even at the late hour, to continue past day break. The alleyway's garbage bins were overflowing. Some sewage pipe had broken, creating a river of rancid sludge he made care to avoid.

Bottles clanked together. Under a pile of choice trash he spotted a vagabond rousted from their sleep.

"Who's that?" The vagabond asked.

"It's me," he replied.

The vagabond squints. "Oh, ok. Good seein' you again."

He's never met the vagabond before, and doesn't bother a guess at who he may be mistaken for. "Could you stand up, so I can take a better look at you?"

"Well… Sure, sure," the Vagabond struggled to find his legs before rising. "You've brought me another message from the Lord?"

Once the vagabond had stood, Dr. Crane neared him placing his handkerchief over his own mouth, and sprayed the vagabond with knock-out gas from the aerosol dispenser hidden up his sleeve.

The vagabond staggered back, swiping at the air in front of his face and coughed low and sickly. Crane gingerly cradled the vagabond's head as he helped him lay down softly.

"What the hell!?" Shouted a voice from behind.

Crane shot up and looked around. At the alley's bend came a big man in similar ruffed up drags as Crane, but sporting better hair and only a days worth of beard growth. Overall, a decent attempt at a disguise, yet lacking. His too-nice shoes were a dead give away.

"Everything is fine," Crane said, affecting his voice to sound older and more tired. "I was helping my friend here. You can move along."

"I don't think so, buddy," the disguised bum said. He reached to his hip in a practiced manner, no doubt grabbing a concealed firearm.

With a flick of his opposite wrist than the aerosol dispenser, Crane fires a dart. The aim is true, hitting the armed man in the neck.

The man forgoes grabbing his gun in a reflex to reach up to his neck with both hands and pluck out the dart, wincing as he does so. Removing it, he twirls the dart in his fingers, examining it. "Thanks for the evidence, you deranged fucker."

A small line of dark fluid, nearly black in the night, dribbles from the puncture hole at the man's neck. One globule of blood plops off the dart tip. The man drops the dart in a plastic bag he'd had on his person. He brandishes his gun.

Crane wobbles, feels his stomach churn. He looks away from the man pointing a gun at him. It took all the fortitude he could muster not to spray his lunch all over the crime scene.

 _Blood, goddammit!_

"-Your hands behind your head," Crane picks up the Armed-man saying.

He does so. More darts were loaded in his wrist-mount, but the cold sweat pouring down his rigid goosebumps would prevent him from attempting anything else that might poke more blood from the armed man.

The man holds the gun out with one hand so his other can take out handcuffs. He stumbles once on his way, pauses and shakes his head. Kneeling down to set down the cuffs, keeping an unwavering bead on Crane's head, he reaches in to his coat pocket. He takes out a bottle of pills.

 _Counter-agents,_ Crane induces. Likely the man wouldn't need them, as it didn't appear the dart's dosage was enough to inoculate him. It took too much of a balancing act to load the darts with enough juice to drop most people, while also not killing most.

Crane was in a tough, but not impossible position. He had to keep his attention from the armed man to keep his intestines from unspooling, or from passing out if his senses alighted upon the exposed blood.

But, if he could keep everything together long enough for the armed man to breach the proximity to handcuff Crane, then he was prepared with further means of attack. Crane would attempt to psychically disarm the man, with many of the methods he'd been practicing lately. The odds of catching his would-be-capture off guard would increase as he'd activate a fear toxin cloud. All it took was a certain roll of his neck, and the gas would spray from a nozzle hiding at his collar.

Crane smiled, anticipating the moment of his strike. It was shaping up to be an exhilarating evening. Stomach acid shocked him with a sudden assault to his throat.

 _If it only there hadn't been any damned blood._

As the armed man struggles at a way to keep the gun on Crane while simultaneously removing the pill bottle cap, Crane notices a second person in his peripherals.

 _More witnesses?_

Crane's heart-rate pounds even more precariously against his ribs.

 _I'm really running into a string of bad luck tonight_ , reflects the doctor.

As he allows himself a peak around the armed man and his trickle of blood, he sees a quietly approaching young woman. She is dressed in a long coat of typical fashion for a cold Gotham night. Her face is pale enough to be nearly luminescent, though most of her features are covered by the wide brim of a black sun-hat. As she looks up at the odd arrest, the corner of her hair shows light roots let grown in behind blue-black died hair. Her eye momentarily flickers off light like a cat's.

As the armed man at last liberates the pill bottle cap, the woman stalks up behind him and grabs each of the man's hands with each of her gloved hands.

"Hey," the armed man startles. "What the hell?"

The woman begins spreading her arms out, in turn bringing the armed man, no less than twice her weight, and his hands with hers. He struggles, but makes no progression. His gun is forced away from Crane to point at the wall.

Grunting, the armed man stands, attempting to use his superior height to break loose.

In a quick snap of a motion, the woman flings the man's gun arm into his back, pinning it. The gun clatters to the ground.

"The _F-,"_ he begins, before the woman let's go of his other arm and grabs the man's throat with her left hand. He gurgles as she squeezes, then grimaces as the air is cut off.

Not giving up without more of a fight, the man makes to stomp on the woman's foot. She deftly maneuvers her foot away, before a sinuous _snap_ resounds, and the man whimpers.

She releases his broken arm, and switches her holds, moving her left hand from throat to pinning the man's left arm behind his back, as she instantaneously grips the throat with her right hand.

Her fingers slowly coil at his windpipe, until his body goes too rigid, and she flexes the fingers out, slightly loosening their grip.

His eyes bulge, and he makes to kick back at her again. The woman, with no grace, but pure ursine strength, sways the man's entire body drastically to one extreme angle, maneuvering his neck like a steering wheel, throwing him off balance. Just as quickly, she sways him the opposite direction, swiping him off his feet, causing him to land on his stomach, face against the grimy pavement.

Crane lets his hands fall. He began to zip-tie the vagabond's feet and hands and gag his mouth during the minute it takes the armed man to pass out in the woman's choke hold.

Without directly looking over, he sees the woman hurry to use a small spray bottle on the blood that had plopped on the ground, at the man's throat, and the smudge on her gloves. She then wipes it all down with tissues she places on a bit of dry ground. She burns them.

Once the blood had been cleared, the woman zip-tied and gagged the disarmed man.

Crane made eye contact with Linda.

"An undercover cop?" Linda asked him, her minuscule Scandinavian accent peaking out after the physical exertion.

"Apparently."

She shook her head, frustrated. "Shit. Does this mean they're onto us?"

Crane felt his stomach calm to near normalcy. "I wouldn't worry about it. This feels like it's some small pet project for this detective. Look at his costume. He was half-assing it, at best."

"You think so?" Linda asked, sounding at once reassured. "But, uh, are we bringing him too?"

"We have to," Crane said. "Only way to reprogram him so he forgets what happened tonight. Plus, unlike the usual stock," Crane gave the vagabond a small kick, "he's got a clean head on him. Small potential for any mental illnesses, and less drugs than the homeless."

"Except for maybe alcohol," Linda noted.

"Sure," Crane shrugged. "Grab them and bring them to the van. I'll get the doors."

Linda hoisted the undercover cop up with her right hand and tucked him under that arm. She sagged from the weight. She walked over to the vagabond and hoisted and tucked him into her left arm, evening her out a bit.

* * *

Linda Friitawa had become an indispensable asset to Dr. Crane. He walked through the alley at a pace just slow enough for his assistant to match behind him.

After moving back to Gotham to finish her schooling, Crane had taken her on as his first internship. At first, it had been to justify his desire at probing the brain of his first albino. When she revealed to him her bizarre feats of strength, he hired her for a permeant position. So far, he'd theorized the secret to her strength originated in her brain, based on her brain scans revealing impressively enlarged adrenal glands.

However, things had been rocky at around that time, as Crane was realizing Linda's reasons for confiding in her mentor was a developing crush she had for him.

Intimacy, at best, reviled Crane. He'd had previous encounters from women who had grown attached to him for various reasons. A common assessment they gave of him was how striking or lovely his shocking blue eyes were. Such a comment sent shivers down his spine. He saw how humans treated things they deemed striking and lovely, pilfering transparent carbon and wearing it like a trophy.

He was quick to correct these women on their brash reactions in response to their defeat of succumbing to a base, primordial imposition over their obviously faltering human cortexes that should be evolved beyond such _tripe_. He usually wouldn't hear much more from them after setting them straight.

For Linda, he'd decided on a different approach. He sat her down and let her know he knew of her succumbing to weakness. She was flustered at first, but Crane was patient. He took his time to explain to her how much he believed her capable of improvement. In a lecture he'd prepared for her, he explained how nefarious the whole ordeal was.

Sex was an imprinted behavior on human genetics. It was the most bestial of all our natures. To adhere to it's calls was to make oneself subservient to a single celled _parasite_ that had _ravished_ its way into being billions of years ago.

A libido was an energy drain; of one's time, life-force, and self-sovereignty. He, himself, could never have achieved half his goals had he not been able to dedicated his whole mind and being to his tasks, instead of being severed by a unwholesome, subhuman desires.

Linda had blushed, which was disturbingly apparent as it surfaced on her pale epidermis.

Her blushing forced Crane's mind to toil over thinking about the greater amounts of capillary loops in her face, and the volume of vessels with their nearness to facial skin.

His own blood rushed in his ears. He felt himself trapped in his own body, drowning in a sea of noxious red plasma.

He'd stood up so fast his chair knocked over. In retrospect, from her point of view he had 'stormed out' on her after hardly any provocation.

After the experience, Linda had made significant strides in harnessing her salacity. Crane had never worked on a person to get them to quell their basest of all human desires, but he found himself verbally rewarding her, which had proven the most effective strategy to retrain the hormonal youth.

She was blushing less and strengthening the intensive vivacity she could throw herself into their work.

* * *

Crane's van was parked halfway onto the sidewalk leading into the alleyway. Its position naturally obfuscated them from view as Crane unlocked the back doors and swung them open.

Not that they were in a part of town that warranted much attention from even the shadiest of scenes. Drug lords and kingpins were already stuffing people in vans all over the goddamn place.

Linda walked up, tossed the two subjects into the back, and closed the doors.

"We just abducted a police officer," she said, catching her breath. "To run experimental treatments on. Might that not be the exact sort of thing crossing the Batman's radar?"

Crane smiled. "Batman coming after me? What an exciting venture that might pose!"


	15. Accurate Empathy: 2

_We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love._

-Sigmund Freud

* * *

Linda untucked Dr. Crane's flannel shirt as they waited on his porch for their ride.

"You look too stiff keeping it tucked that way," Linda said, as if that was an adequate reason for picking at his clothes.

He left it there, frowning down at his outfit. "This is the first time I'm wearing this while not on the job. I look like a bum for no reason."

Linda also wore a flannel and jeans and had accessorized with a straw hat. She shrugged. "Well, it's nice of you to play along."

"The man himself personally called me and coerced me to attend this event. The second I acquiesced, Bruce blurted out the dress code and hung up."

"Complain all you want," Linda checked her watch, "but remember to _thank_ Bruce. This is going to help you, too. The fundraiser's bound to be swarming with all his upper-crust friends."

Crane squeezed the bridge of his nose, accepting his fate of being locked up in, what amounted to, a _party_. "Grant money," he reminded himself. "I'm doing this for the grant money."

"Oh, he's here."

Crane looked up to see the bulky refrigerator-truck clank and huff to a stop at his curb. He sighed.

The passenger door opened, revealing Victor wearing his own flannel, tight against his massive frame, contrasting to the slack left in Crane's own smaller shirt. Victor's sleeves stayed put, rolled past his sinewy forearms.

Linda hoisted herself up and climbed into the middle seat. Crane followed, stabbing Victor with an accusatory glare.

"Sorry," Victor said, yanking at the iron bar of a stick-shift, and roared the engine before peeling from the curb. "Nora's got the car tonight."

Crane sighed. "Alright," he said, surrendering to the night ahead.

"Nora working the night-shift at the hospital?"

Victor Fries was one of the few people Crane appreciated the presence of. They lived near each other and were often carpool buddies. Victor's asset lay in that, more than anyone Crane had ever met, the man disbelieved in awkward silences as much as Crane did. Most of the time, Crane would enter the refrigerator-truck with neither man wasting time with a perfunctory salutation or even an acknowledging glance and nod. They had the respect for each other and confidence in themselves to say nothing.

Letting each other be, while also saving gas. When language evolved between proto-humans, it was purely utilitarian.

 _-Food, that way.-_

 _-Danger that way.-_

 _-My territory, here. Stay out.-_

The modern brain still had trouble processing the concept that other human's wouldn't outright understand any words it produced and spoke.

By and large, Crane and Victor left conversation to the essentials. There were no expectations, and no wasted energy or time.

He was unsure how Linda would effect that dynamic. She wouldn't feel compelled to _converse_ the whole way to the event, would she?

"Yap," was Victor's curt reply.

Linda nodded, but didn't breach any new topics.

Crane had to remind himself that Linda was good at reading people. Not as good as he was, but she was good in ways he wasn't, which was part of what made her valuable to him. Crane was skilled at reading _why_ people had done what they did. Linda had more of a talent for predicting what people might do as a result of how they felt.

 _Sympathy._ That's what she had. The ability to approximately feel what other people felt. She could extrapolate from there what actions those emotions would be the catalyst for.

Crane had always bad at Sympathy. He didn't get why the yahoos allowed emotions into the equation. No matter how he felt, he acted toward the most logical end. Well, that was discounting his phobias… But he would get past those.

He also reminded himself Linda was attuned to reading him in a heightened way. She was like a dog that way. All her queues she picked up by obsessing over his every fidget and tick.

Likely she had divined Crane's wish to simply _be_ in the car with the two of them, and that it was perfectly acceptable to do so around Victor.

He tried to ignore the reason _why_ Linda was so obsessed over his mannerisms.

 _She'll get there,_ he told himself. _Just be patient with her. Despite her strengths, she's still only human._

—-

Parking had proven quite the challenge in the refrigerator truck. Eventually they opted to park a block away and take a short walk to the venue.

Crane could hear the swing music before they entered.

He'd been to Bruce's fundraisers in the past. Compared to the white tie, fully catered, rooftop affairs Bruce was known for (Crane remembered them rife with oddities like acrobats hanging from the ceiling or half nude models floating in the fountains), this was a heap more humble and quaint.

The dress code was "country-western," meaning a lot of flannel, jeans, hats and boots. In place of a brooding ambience, bright lights flooded in. There was a hokey dance floor full of people line dancing and laughing. No wait staff carrying trays of bite sized hors d'oeuvres could be spotted, but rather a long table of normal looking foods.

Victor detached himself to mingle, his wide inviting smile suddenly sublimating across his face. Despite the love for silent respect he and Crane shared, Victor was more proficient at being charming in these situations. He also had the advantage of knowing many of the events attendees, as the Gotham's rich made up the bulk of his clientele.

Linda tried not to look too conspicuously at the food table. Crane stuck by her next to the entrance, not seeing anywhere else he'd be inclined to walk to. He spotted Bruce surrounded by a group of people enrapt in whatever he was talking about.

Bruce made eye-contact with Crane and immediately excused himself from his gaggle to walk over. The man looked genuinely happy in a way Crane had never seen him, as he approached and reached to shake Crane's hand.

"Glad you made it, John," he said, sounding like he meant it. "I like this look on you."

"I prefer my suit," Crane said, accepting the shake.

Bruce's contented look took on a peevish subtext, as he looked over to Linda. "I don't believe we've met, miss…"

Taking Bruce's hand, she said, "Friitawa. Linda Friitawa."

Linda took measures to hide her freakish strength, one of which include giving uncomfortably loose handshakes. It didn't escape Crane's attention that Bruce ever so slightly looked down at Linda's hand. No doubt Linda would assume it was because the shake was bad, but Crane got the feeling Bruce had somehow divined a part of her secret from the second long interaction.

Moving on regardless, Bruce said, " _Free-ta-wa_? I've never heard the name before."

Linda gave one of her chuckles that people found endearing. "No, you wouldn't have. My parents combined surnames. Frii was my dad. He hailed from Sweden then met my mom here. Tawa was her's. It's-"

"Philipino," Bruce nodded.

"Right," she beamed. "People don't usually get that one, because of my complexion."

"Which is quite lovely," Bruce said.

"She's my assistant," Crane added.

Bruce nodded sagely at that.

"You're spread over there smells delicious," Linda said.

"Oh, please, help yourself."

Linda looked between the two, before saying, "There's no, um, limit, or anything?"

"No, no," Bruce encouraged her over. "I insist. Take as much as you want. That's what it's there for. Besides this crowd isn't the most used to indulging themselves in public."

Linda's smile grew wider before she walked over to the table.

"You're in for it now," Crane said.

Bruce quirked a questioning eyebrow.

"She has polyphagia," Crane explained. "With an extremely fast metabolism. Basically, she eats like an elephant and doesn't gain any weight."

"Wow," Bruce said, looking over, as if at any moment of watching a young women piling food on a plate something amazing would happen. "She's something. I, uh, was about to hit on her, but I know you hate watching people breach that territory."

"You… know that I hate that stuff? We've never talked about the subject before."

Bruce shrugged. "We're good at reading each other.

"I noticed you came in with Mr. Fries. Are you subscribed to his business?"

"Of course I am," Crane said without pause. "Aren't you?"

"The unvalidated science of cryonics aside, I don't want my body reanimated ever. Once I'm dead, I'll be glad to part with this world. I'm ready to embrace whatever adventure comes next."

"Feel free to take that gamble," Crane said. "Christian's believe in heaven and hell. Hindus think we'll be subsumed into the brahman, to join each other in becoming one again. Atheists think death signifies the annihilation of the soul.

"I know this life, this world. If there's even an unreliable thread to survival of my body, you can bet your ass I'll yank on it, even if it means something unravels."

"I grew up believing that," Bruce said, "even after death, you're immortalized in the minds of those you leave behind. Even a city can contain a remnant of the soul, if you've lived a life that affects the environment, for the better or worse."

"Growing up, starting when I was three," Crane said, smiling grimly. "My Grandma would punish me by terrifying me with the reminder of death. She would startle me by lying around, pretending to be a corpse. Sometimes she made the rest of the family ignore me, getting me to think I was dead. Once, she brought me to the university and locked me in with a cadaver."

Bruce whistled. "I'm assuming it was cut open, that some sort of blood was involved."

"Right, right," Crane recalled some of their more interesting 'non-sessions' at his place. Now, Bruce knew of two of his biggest fears. Crane wondered if he'd ever reveal his third, the one predominating the night terrors of his youth. He realized this was the first time since they'd become friends they were seeing each other in a normal setting. "How are things going with your friend? This… person you've been rehabilitating."

"Thoughtful of you to ask. Sometimes I'm surprised that they've begun working with me at all, and other times I'm frustrated at how slow the progress seems to take. At the worst times there are still regressions in their behavior. Feels almost like a betrayal, which I know is silly, since that's been their nature for so long."

"Remember," Crane said, "to never express that to them. Your stance is you're surprised they would do the wrong thing. You always _expect_ the best from them. They can't believe they can change unless you do. Or, at least they won't believe they can, unless they can follow your lead."

Bruce nodded. "I've been restricting my attention from them even more if they commit… certain greater digressions. So now, even when throwing their tantrums, I've seen them holding back in specific way."

"Good, good. Sounds like they're at least partially open to growing."

"It's just that…" Bruce looked like his old stoic self for the first time at that night. "I'm worried. What if I'm only smoothing out their edges, but can never set them on the path for good?"

"Good?" Crane cocked his head to the side. "You've only been trying to modify their basic behavior. If you want them to be 'good,' or mentally healthy, that would require cooperation from both sides."

Bruce nodded with his eyes focusing elsewhere. "I've tried discussing some sort of collaboration like that before. They didn't take it well.

"No, for the time being I need to do as much as I can to fix them on my own."

Crane wanted to laugh at the arrogance of the statement, but knew from his training how disastrous that would be. Bruce trying to 'fix' his friend was so average a sentiment, it almost made Crane give up on his friendship with the billionaire altogether. _No, be patient with Bruce too. He's a beneficial connection. Plus, there's more layers to peel back that may prove interesting; at least for a time._ "Bruce, you can't fix anybody."

Bruce's attention was completely gone at that point. He picked his phone out of his pocket and checked the caller id. "Excuse me John. I need to take this.

"Helen, Samuel," Bruce waved over a couple. "I'd like you to meet the psychologist who's going to be examining Dr. Langstrom and Waylon Jones; Dr. Crane."

Crane shook hands and watched Bruce hurry off to take his call.

In his peripherals, Crane spotted the security detail locking each door and looking extra attentive, listening to incoming commands over their ear-pieces.

Something, it appeared, was amiss.


	16. Accurate Empathy: 3

_Love knows nothing of virtue, no merit; it loves and forgives and tolerates everything because it must. We are not guided by reason…_

-Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

* * *

"…Marches and demonstrations filling the streets," Alfred said over the phone. "All at once, out from nowhere. Spilling out like cockroaches after the lights die down."

"Blocking main streets that would allow the police access to this location, if anything were to happen?" I asked. A thin noose of some kind was being synched around the charity event's throat. The reason was yet to be determined. I'd repositioned the security team to better preempt any oncoming disasters as I strode to the green room to check on the evenings guest speaker. "What are they even protesting?"

"Based on what I can make out on the tele," Alfred took a beat to figure something out. "The hordes are protesting your operation to rehabilitate the 'monster men.' They're crying for the beasts to be put down."

I halted. "That doesn't sound like Bluebird's MO. She'd be in favor of curing them. Are you sure she's behind this?"

"That was the reason for us being blindsided by this. These are by and large the deepest of right wing sects. Essentially Bluebird's enemies, if you will. That, in itself, may be a bad omen."

"If there's any fallout," I said. "Her only pawns in harms way are people she hates. This might be big."

"If anything at all," Alfred added.

"Right…"

 _Was it him? Was the Joker planning something? Were his sights set on the find-a-cure charity event for Hugo Strange's transformed victims?_

My gut wasn't giving me anything. I couldn't conceive of a reason for the Joker enacting one of his demonstrations at this event.

Deputy Commissioner Winthrop went up to the podium on the low stage and tapped the mic. The lights slightly dimmed.

"Good evening, Gothamites," she began her address. "Tonight we meet on the anniversary of one of out cities worst tragedies-"

I waited in the crowd, contemplating what to do.

Should I call the police, giving them a head start, in case the worst occurred?

Or was there nothing to actually worry about?

Without my gut functioning as a guide, the only evidence I had to any possible threat was a large march of protestors in opposition to Bluebird's ideology, with only a tenuous connection back to her. Maybe she wasn't behind this, or perhaps she was at her own game; possibly the Joker had nothing to do with any of it.

It was too big a coincidence for the protests to be positioned in the streets circling an event they were seemingly unaware of.

"-Dr. Langstrom and Waylon Jones, currently held at Arkham, awaiting psychological evaluation and treatment," Winthrop continued. "The third, who's name we still don't know, was transferred to Belle Reve Penitentiary. The fifth, who we now know was Drury Walker, died from complications of his transformation.

"And the fourth, who we lost all record of, I'd like to extend the offer to come forward to us, moving past the crimes that madman Strange caused you to commit. We can give you the help you need. We only want to help you.

"And for all those who died or lost friends and family during those dark weeks, let's have a moment of silence."

My mind had already gone silent. Should I go get Batman to scout the perimeter? It wasn't like me to be indecisive. Any of the prior times I'd felt the possibility of a threat, I'd go get Batman; better safe than sorry. So, maybe, the real question was, what was keeping me at the event?

It couldn't be that I was less eager to leave and be replaced by the Dark Knight than I always was. I always preferred the change.

Perhaps I was listening to a deeper feeling than the absence of a gut intuition; an active disbelief that the Joker would show up and face Bruce Wayne.

Whatever my reasons, I was wrong.

His cackle exploded from no discernible direction.

Two security guards drew their arms.

Behind Deputy Commissioner Winthrop, a section of wall, shaped like a door, careened forward, and smacked into the ground with a wumf of white dust kicked up.

 _He burrowed his own door into the wall before the party, then added new plaster to this side so we never noticed._

A steam machine billowed a misty wall the Joker entered through. A green light show made his visage a featureless walking shadow until he was directly behind Winthrop.

Before she could run, a clawed bear-trap clamped over her head, the jagged 'teeth' sinking into her neck.

The Joker held the weapon by a chain.

He wore alligator leather pants and boots. His head was covered by a winter fur hat. A knee length fur coat covered him, splashed all over with blood.

Winthrop put her hands to the bear trap and tried to find a hold so as to alleviate the teeth poking in her neck. Her eyes had gone wild.

With a look, and a simple jangle of the chain in his hands, the Joker threatened to clamp the trap fully closed if he were provoked by Winthrop, with the threat implicit to any help from the sidelines.

"Evening, Gothamites." He said, voice rich with mirth.

My only two armed guards I'd detailed to the event flanked the stage, guns drawn, trained on the Joker's head.

I would be worried they'd shoot to kill him, if I didn't know the Joker so well. It was rare for a gun to be aimed at him without him allowing and expecting it.

It was too common for him to dole out punishment on the brave few who dared threaten his life.

"Let the Deputy Commissioner go, now!" Marty, the guard to my right shouted. Sweat already beaded across his face.

Joker glowered down him. "Marty Howards. Has yet to have used his pistol in the field, if I remember correctly."

Jerry sneered with false confidence. I was close enough to tell he was restraining from gulping. "That supposed to stop me from shooting you, freak?"

The Joker tapped a finger from his free hand against his face while his eyes spun upwards, feigning at recalling some mundane fact. "You keep that gun in the top drawer in the nightstand next to your bed."

"Bullshit," Marty squinted his eyes. "That's not even a clever guess. Who wouldn't keep their gun somewhere like that?"

"Marty," I whispered. "Lower your gun."

Positioning his hand so Marty, but not the other armed guard, could see, the Joker pointed in mock-secrecy. "That's not where Terrance over here stashes his firearm."

Terrance, my other armed guard, could still hear what was said. He flinched.

"I'm sick'a the cops not having the balls to do this," Marty said.

"No," I yelled too late. Not that Marty would have listened to me anyways.

I covered my face with my arm right before Marty gritted and pulled the trigger.

The bang was too loud and the muzzle flash bright enough for me to make out past closed eyes veiled by the crook of my inner elbow. As the echoes continued, I heard the screams of the guests as most of them ran for the exits.

I looked over to Marty who'd fallen to his knees, face gone pale and splattered with a small amount of blood. He stared at the bleeding messy remains of his right hand. Several pieces of charred gun handle dropped to the floor.

Marty's gun had been sabotaged before he'd ever arrived to the charity event.

The chuckling Joker casually turned his head to look at Terrance. "Closet." His lips peeled back into a smile wide enough to already be impressive, revealing his massive teeth. The lips kept slowly receding to look painful, then wrong and distorted, then all the way to hyperbole. The phrase smiling ear to ear was in the Joker's realm of possibility.

Terrance tossed his gun aside.

Looking around, I saw my invited guests shaking at the exit doors to no avail. All blocked from the outside.

"Shut up," the Joker boomed, louder than the speaker system had been channeling, so that every person heard his command over the uproar.

The guests did gradually grow quieter, but not calmer. I realized my phone had been buzzing. I hazard a look at the screen. Alfred was trying to alert me to a bizarre crime that had happened that night that could also be connected to Joker.

When I read what it was, I pieced together roughly what the Joker had planned next for us.

"Gotham elite," he said. "You think you're evolved enough to help the beast men? After the bloody crest hewn into this city by them, I'm convinced they can fend for themselves. If you all want to be worthy of declawing those monsters, how about first proving you can fend for yourselves."

In the silence following his voice dying down, the cacophony from outside began seeping inside.

Lions roaring, elephants trumpeting, a gorilla howling.

Alfred had alerted me the local zoo had been emptied. It must have taken heap loads of dedication on the part of the Joker's goons to have herded the animals here. Not that they'd necessarily pose too much of a real threat. Whether or not they were natural hunters, these animals that grown up in captivity.

"Of course," Joker said. "I've given them a little something to aggravate them and enhance their bloodlust."

 _Ah,_ I thought. _There's the danger._

As far as poignance, the Joker may have been at an all time low. I wasn't buying that he had any real grievance against our charity of finding a cure for the beast men. If I had to guess, which I could now that my gut was up and running again, then the Joker had some ulterior motive for attacking the event.

"Speaking of drugs to ignite violence…" the Joker reached into his outer coat pocket and pressed a button.

Visible gas began pouring into the room through the doors. The startled guests began backing away.

 _Ulterior motives or not, his attack on the party is still plenty dangerous._

The doors opened, letting in more gas. I covered my mouth and nose with a cloth, even though it looked like the gas could take several minutes to reach where I stood near the stage. The growls and roars of enraged animals grew louder and neared the doors. Behind the veil of drugged gas I saw the sparks of a cattle prod, before a snarling tiger leapt into the room. it's eyes shining as it flicked its head around at the guests.

More screams issued. Soon, the guests would be forced to make a break for it through the gas where, I assumed, the plan was for them to be chased through the streets while they were in further induced states of panic and aggression.

"Mr. Wayne," Marty's weak voice mumbled beside me. "Cover me."

Marty still looked like shit. But, during the commotion, he'd managed to tie his tie tight around his right wrist as a workable tourniquet. He crawled a bit behind my leg to block the Joker's view of him. His left hand was awkwardly removing a small gun hidden below his calf.

"I bought this today," Marty whispered. "That psycho couldn't possibly have known I'd have this."

I refused to look over to the Joker. My peripherals approximated that he had no idea what Marty was planning, but I doubted that. If Marty aimed a second gun at the Joker, the Joker would not hesitate killing him. Joker was a deadly aim with whatever projectiles he had hidden up his sleeve. More than likely he'd fling sharpened metallic playing cards through Marty's skull.

As Marty drew the gun, I flicked my hand out and took it from him before he saw what I was doing. I pointed the gun forward as if I was going to aim it at the Joker.

Before I even would have been able to aim and pull the trigger, the bear trap flew at me and snapped shut around my forearm. Blood filled my sleeve. It was more than the half ajar state it had been left in around Winthrop's neck. I was good and snared.

With a florid motion, the Joker bent down and hauled the chain in. I had to leap up to the stage to keep my arm in tact.

We were face to face. Soothing fingers caressed my numb hand, and the gun was removed from its grasp and discarded away.

I didn't know what to say.

The Joker had an unusually high amount of wrath behind his eyes.

"This is what you get for thrusting your unasked for help on Gotham's worst monsters," His whisper pierced like an attack into my ear.

My free hand jammed into the bear traps mechanisms, feeling for a way to dismantle its hold on me.

The Joker produced and whisked open an ornate straight razor.

His infamous weapon. Every Gothamite would know what occasion the Joker brandished it for.

 _Bruce Wayne knew martial arts, but would he be quick enough to block the attack?_

I didn't know what maneuvers Bruce could pull without looking too adroit to rouse suspicions.

My indecision on what defense I could use to save myself and not look too much like Batman stunted my reflexes for half a second too long.

The Joker was freakishly fast, but I'd never realized before how even the fight between him and Batman would be, if the Dark Knight ever found himself lacking his armor and gadgets.

Long before I felt anything, I saw the razor's blade sluice down past my head like it had become intangible and phased through my face. Following in its wake was a wave of my blood splattering to the stage.

I moved my hand up to my left cheek. A sticky feeling followed a line from the corner of the lip to the end of the cheek. My fingers back soaking red.

The Joker barked a laugh in my face, startling me, so I was unprepared for him kicking me in the balls.

I always wore a cup, but he'd kicked swift and hard. I felt the impact up to my throat. In my biggest act of stupidity, I screamed from the pain. A horrendous tear could be heard ripping across my cheek; I felt its gummy insides stretch apart and snap. Blood instantly washed down my chin and flow past my neck.

The Joker pushed me off the stage. I was stunned enough to stay down on my back.

The bear trap had been released. Already the Joker was tossing it, ensnaring some other victim.

I was on the verge of passing out when I saw the Joker wave goodbye and tug Dr. Crane behind him, whose head was trapped within the vice's teeth.

Grunting, I willed myself to stay conscious. Jumping up, hand tight to my burning cheek, I readied to pursue.

The gas enshrouded me first. A primal growl proceeded a tiger pouncing on my back and using its claws to hold me down in my own pooling blood.


	17. Accurate Empathy: 4

_Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization._

-Marquis de Sade

* * *

In the back of the speeding van, Dr. Crane's neck wounds were being meticulously treated by the Joker.

Thankfully, seeing his own blood failed to incite Crane's deep phobia as much as when he saw it leaking from others. Still, bleeding was on the farthest end away from a pleasant experience.

The Joker had dabbed disinfectant wipes each of Crane's wounds he'd created with the bear trap. As he placed the last large bandage over Crane's neck, he said, "There we go. That'll rid us of the nasty, nasty stuff."

"Could have saved yourself some time by not attacking me to begin with," Crane muttered to his captor.

"I could have not attended to the punctures caused by me attacking you, either," the Joker pointed out.

He was the ultimate rogue, Crane was noticing, being face to face with the Joker for his first time. They were alone in the van's storage space. A masked goon driving and a second sitting next to him. Both armed with what looked like tranq guns, which might have just been for the nights 'hunting' aesthetic the Joker had put together. It was possible they were loaded with real bullets. Both goons wore army boots over camo pants, hunting vests, and a mask of a panda and a bat.

"Guess it's my right of passage as a Gothamite," Crane said, half to himself. "Finally my turn at getting kidnapped by you."

The Joker grinned. It looked sincere. As the Joker had rebutted him before about bandaging the wounds, he'd sounded genuine in his camaraderie. Crane wasn't fooled. The Joker had been dubbed his title, at least in part, because even as he kidnapped and threatened you, he made you feel like he was somehow still on your side, that he was doing it because he enjoyed your company so much.

The Joker had preternatural control of every muscle fiber in his face and every modulation his vocal cords produced. Even his pupils, if studied in the minutia of their dilation, synched with whatever emotion he meant to be emulating.

It would have terrified Crane, if his insane jealousy hadn't crowded out his ability to additionally feel terrified.

Crane saw past it all. The laughs, the social commentary, and even that second-to-none charisma.

Beneath the perfect veneer of the Joker was an absolute disdain for humanity. Or, perhaps that was Crane transposing his own feelings too much. What the Joker felt for humans was _pity_. And no one you pity can be half your equal.

Unlike himself, a man who felt as profoundly as the Joker must be shackled with insane loneliness. Not a thought that entered most people's heads when imagining the Joker's maniacal smile on that inimitable and murderous face.

The certainty of Crane's current life subsisting being a far cry from certain, he decided to take advantage of whatever time he had left. After all, the Joker was as fascinating a creature as the cosmos had ever produced.

"To what do I owe the privilege?" Crane asked.

Joker leaned back, putting his hands behind his head. "I just wanted to talk to a therapist."

"Oh?" That took Crane by surprise. "So, uh, why me?"

The Joker squinted one eye. "Hmm… I don't really remember.

"These men fear me too much or are too urbane to have a proper heart to heart with. That's what I loved about having my Harley Quinn around.

"Oh, is that why I thought of you? Because you two were colleagues, at the beginning?"

Crane recalled his time working at Arkham Asylum. His frustration after Batman had finally caught the infamous Joker, only for the new girl, Harleen Quinzel, to be given the job over himself.

Crane hadn't held back in his 'told-you-so's' an iota after it had all blown up in Jeremiah Arkham's face.

"I admired your work on her."

Joker quirked an eyebrow. "My work?"

It was a tactic Crane had seen Joker use against Quinzel in their session's tapes he'd stolen. Joker was being falsely modest (though authentically, as far as his physiology was concerned) to make it feel like he was playing on Crane's level, or possibly below. Formatting the response as a question also meant Joker could probe into Crane's head, instead of the inverse.

If Crane had been Joker's therapist, he would never have indulged such nonsense, such as Quinzel had (she'd fallen for all Joker's tricks, hook-line and sinker). However, since Crane was the captive, Joker holding all the cards, he indulged. "You turning her. It takes a true master of manipulation to break the mind of his own therapist into planning and enacting his own breakout."

Joker put his hands up innocently. "No mastery, no breaking. I merely revealed to her the cage she'd been confining herself to live imprisoned in. She came around to believing me, so she asked my advice on how to break herself out. Her orchestrating my release was her sole conception, as a means of reciprocal altruism."

Crane suspected if his brain were capable of sympathy or experienced empathy the neural-typical way, he would be doubting his own doubts, unable to shake the _feeling_ in his gut that the Joker meant what he said. Crane pitied Quinzel. She'd hardly stood a chance against this monster. He felt even more jealous. Even if Crane stole the Joker's words and demeanor, there was no competing with natural charm. "Unusual. Most people want to hide in the safety of their 'cages.' My job wouldn't exist otherwise."

" _Be yourself!_ " Joker shouted, causing a severe flinch in Crane. " _What you are at present doing, opining, and desiring, that is not really you…_ That, is the voice I heard inside Harley Quinn when I met her. I assisted her in listening to that."

"Mankind is inherently lazy. Every culture, every city. They act both as the products of the factory, as well as the mechanisms producing the product. To hear that voice, they would have to sacrifice their comfort." Crane mused out loud, building rapport with Joker by expressing feelings based on accurate empathy of Joker's own world. Not that Crane disagreed with what Joker had just said… for himself. But applying that philosophy to the world would lead to chaos.

The world at large saw the Joker's end game as an attempt to revert society back into a state of chaos. With his most educated guess, Crane suspected Joker's true goal was to lead society to anarchy. Unfortunately, Crane believed, anarchy was a latent state one-second away from combusting into chaos.

The van slowed.

"We're here," Joker licked his lips.

Crane followed out of the van to slink into St. Lawrence's cathedral.

—-

The two goons were stationed outside, leaving Crane standing alone in the middle of the aisles in the main sanctuary.

Joker approached and mounted the lectern. He cleared his throat, before throwing wide his arms and belting, " ** _Here endeth-_** " so loud Crane had to cover his ears. The echoes giggled around the sanctuary.

"You don't much care if other people are in on your jokes or not," Crane noted out loud.

Joker crouched over the lectern. "Other people… do you really believe they exist?"

"Believe?" Crane scoffed. "It doesn't matter what anyone believes. Frankly, I don't think brains are able to comprehend the weight of other's existing. But, again, it doesn't much matter. All we are, is what we do."

Placing his elbows to rest and interlocking his fingers, Joker rested his chin of the backside of his hands. It looked similar to a teenage girl anticipating gossip. "So, is that your weltanschauung?"

"My-," Crane had to briefly search for the word. "My worldview? I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

"Oh, ho," Joker's grin turned sly. "Quite the exclusive scoop that would be for you. Well, fairs fair: We thrash violently around in this roving shitball, gasping not for breath, killing not for survival, evolving not for advancement, and reproduction being the last reason we would ever fuck.

"We're a race of the most lugubriously dejected beings ever to be cursed with life. Demons in hell aren't a metaphor, it's us. God spites you and me so much, he forced our minds to know with clarity that we will die, but ripped the part out of our souls capable of dreaming to understand what that means.

"All we do is flounder helplessly attempting to feel happy, and everyone knows that's all there is."

Joker pushed his foot forward into the lectern until it teetered forward and fell.

"Sounds like there's several axioms we could agree on," Crane said. "I believe I'm nothing but matter. Simply a conglomeration of otherwise dead particles thrust around by the most dastardly force in the universe. Emotions."

"Like fear," Joker said, walking down the aisle toward Crane.

"Fear," Crane chuckled. "May be second only to gravity in forces that make the world go round."

"I'm afraid," Joker shivered, wrapping his arms around himself.

"Really? Of what?"

As Joker approached Crane, a flick of his hand manifested his ornate straight razor, blade already drawn. Joker admired his reflection between the recent blood flecks dried on, and said, "I'm afraid, I'm going to have to kill you, Dr. Crane."

Every hair on Crane shot up. A coppery taste burned at his throat. His shirt soaked in sweat. Time seemed to slow.

Joker, inches away from Crane, bent the razor horizontally, pressed the blunt side up to his nose and inhaled deeply. The loungy sniff was reminiscent of an affluent man beginning the ritual of enjoying a cigar. His eyes fluttered and remained closed as he stretched his arms out wide, letting out a lion sized sigh.

Crane still had equipped his sleeping gas hidden in one sleeve and the dart launcher up the other. One of his telescoping batons was waiting in his pocket. Before him, his would be killer had cut off his own senses and spread himself out bare, open to be attacked.

As a child, Crane had been overly aggressive and abounding with an even more bottomless well of energy, impressive even among his peers at school. His grandmother had forced him into an array of sports and physical activities until he landed on one he threw his entire essence into; Kung Fu. At the time, he thought it a terrific joke that it was a school in Crane style.

Currently, the Doctor still practiced, more so than most of his adult life since he'd been fired from Wayne Industries. Crane was physically fit and proficient in a fight. Joker had just exposed himself. If Crane wanted to save himself from being chopped up, this was his best chance.

But…

Joker's current opening was an obvious trap. It was the ultimate form of chest puffing. Crane remembered an instance during the Joker's stay at Arkham when the then-patient had closed his eyes in close proximity to a muscly orderly. Joker had just assaulted a previous orderly with his teeth, his only weapon due to being constrained in a straight jacket. The muscly orderly took the opportunity to throw an upper cut at the 'defenseless' patient. Crane had had to rewatch the tapes in slow motion several times to grasp what the Joker had done in that quarter of a second to physically demolish that orderly, who'd been rendered hospitalized.

Despite Crane's evidence looking like he could strike the vulnerable Joker, he knew it would be easier to beat an olympic gold medalist in sprints. But, if he was going to die anyways, he should do whatever he could to fight for his life.

Crane remained rigid. His best opportunity to attack the Joker fading as he was paralyzed with inaction. More than anything, Crane hated that his reflexes always slanted toward flight than fight in moments of panic, no matter how dire.

Joker's eyes peeled open.

Pupils that never shifted within efflorescent green irises shifted in sclera permanently reddened with severe branches of perpetually dilated blood vessels.

Joker wasn't born looking the way he did. It was commonly believed the terrorist who'd replaced a local criminal (notoriously concealing his face with a red hood) had fallen into some extremely caustic chemicals, that were essentially a suped-up chlorine. His skin was bleached pure white, his hair stained green, and those eyes burned agonizingly raw. Whoever the Joker had been before he'd died, was still dead, and was walking around currently threatening Crane's life with an antiquated shaving implement.

In that moment, Crane became convinced whatever kept the Joker from being killed was somehow supernatural. He'd lived through a city full of cops who would take any excuse to murder him, a pantheon of gang members he'd systematically eluded assassination plots while burying each of them in turn, a series of hitmen, the friends-turned-enemies within his own ranks, and a vat of acid that would dissolve a titanium screw in under a minute.

However genius, well equipped, naturally skilled, quick in any tight situation or fight, or strong a human was, if enough people (or poisons), wanted them dead, it wouldn't be long before they succumbed.

Crane was scared past the boundaries he'd thought possible, and he was _the_ expert in fear.

"You're not going to fight me, John?" Joker poked Crane's forehead with a spindly forefinger. "Well that's no fun." He turned his back to Crane before looking over his shoulder. "I was kidding anyways. Probably won't kill you. There's still something I need from you."

It felt to Crane like he was about to faint from relief. "I still want to understand why you went to all the trouble of bringing me here."

Joker swiveled around and sidled up next to Crane, putting his arm over Crane's shoulders in a gesture of camaraderie. "Isn't there some sort of fear inducing toxin you've cooked up?"

Crane remained coolheaded, as he'd literally practiced in case his darkest secrets were ever mentioned to his face. He refused to be caught completely off guard to the point of relying solely on improvisation to deny accusations. However, with the Joker as his would-be patient, he simply asked, "If I did, what would you want with it?"

"It may sound silly, but far more than death, I _fear_ being _bored_. Can you imagine a worse fate than that? To be stranded on a desert island by yourself? Even if you had an infinite supply of resources at your disposal; without purpose or struggle or that special person who's company makes it all worthwhile, you'd be better off dead. You'd be better off as nothing…"

Joker trailed off. His arm was still hugged around Crane, and his face near enough to make out the slight quiver of resistance to a build-up of tears.

Not that Crane bought the sentimentality. Anything Joker did could be an act. Maybe all of it was. Likely, Joker couldn't tell the difference between his own authentic emotions and those he fabricated. _Is that his secret to being the world's most competent liar?_

"I understand," Crane said. "I can't stand boredom. Even though, unlike you, I fear death, I still place myself inside its maw. Sometimes, that's the only way to alleviate the pangs of boredom."

"Right, right," Joker's voice rose. He let go of Crane and began pacing. "My problem is that, awhile ago, I reached a point where I wanted to die _._ But, I would give life one last chance to prove itself to me. I did everything in my power to construct a Rube Goldberg machine of despair to climax with the police capping my ass off into oblivion.

"Not only did they prove themselves too incompetent at my game to finish me off, but they were so normal in their attempts that I felt flagellated by the compounding boredom.

"Until, until," a sparkle winked in Joker's eyes. " _He_ came to play. Batman could ignore the rules, think outside the box; hell, fill the fuckin' box with ants, paint it black, and toss it in the ocean! It was so interesting and fun, and I had purpose. And I wasn't _alone._ "

"But now…" Joker examined his reopened razor wit the blood on it. " _That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives_.

"Batman is refusing to play the game anymore. I'm faced with my biggest fear. But what to do? I can't know unless I know what I fear most: of losing a part of myself by becoming what he wants me to? Or giving up on Batman, cutting all ties with him…" Joker glowered, "to pieces…"

Crane realized he'd never conceived of using his fear drug for the purpose of enlightenment before. The problem was, "It's more complicated than that. The drug isn't just going to show you what you want to see. Actually, since it plays off fear, you're more likely to experience a trip rendering you more confounded for your attempts."

Joker's heavy air slid off him as he shrugged, a 'who-gives-a-shit' side grin on his face. "I'm still going to try. Has it ever shown you your biggest fear?"

Flashbacks to night-terrors plaguing his childhood, sometimes realer than waking life, pounded inside Crane's head. He remembered one of his earlier 'Dr. Jekyll' moments where he used himself as a test subject. His early night-terrors reflected cute in comparison.

He'd trapped himself in an eternity of that tableau most terrifying to him:

The outstretched arms, corralling him into a loving embrace. His ear placed to the pile-driving heart, beating its dirge into his skull. _Affection._

The memory of the trip was seared intensely enough into his soul, that it tremored. He had to close his eyes and focus to unfurl his palsying whitened fists.

Joker laughed. "Seems like a resounding _ya_!" He put his hands forward and beckoned with his fingers, "Gimme'! Come on Johnny, don't hold out on me."

Crane hesitated. What should he do? He didn't know what would happen is he refused, and he absolutely couldn't hazard a guess what would happen if he doused Joker. Handing out weaponized, violence inducing, hallucinogenics to a mass murder felt like a dumb idea.

He might not have much of a choice. Joker could always kill him and take away the fear toxin.

But, most importantly, Crane was itching with curiosity to see what would happen if he mixed his drug into whatever Joker's brain was.

Unfortunately, Crane preferred life to scratching an itch, no matter how tantalizing. He was preparing to offer the fear toxin in exchange for being set free and away from Joker when he took his hit.

Joker held up a finger and sniffed deeply. "Hold that thought. Someone's coming. Someone _interesting_."

 _Batman_? Crane couldn't help hoping. Hanging around Joker was exhilarating, but far from safe. Even the world's most enthusiastic Ophiologist trapped in a pit of venomous snakes would be sweating, hoping for a rope ladder out.

The Goon with the panda mask's body flew into the room past an archway. It didn't get up or move.

"You smell like…" Joker began.

The bat-masked Goon appeared behind the archway. As he approached, it became clearer he was pushed forward, his feet dragging against the floor. A single hand wrapped around his neck carried him over.

"Meat killed scared; too tough to eat," Joker reveled in finishing his assessment. He wafted his hand toward his nose and made a dower face in a mocking caricature of a snobbish food-critic.

The bat-masked Goon's arms flopped around at his sides. His voice squeaked as he tried to force his voice past the crushing grip.

The Goon's gun poked out from behind him.

"Drop the razor, Joker," Linda's shout sang through the sanctuary.

The razor clattered to the floor. "Just don't hurt the boy," Joker intentionally didn't sound convincing in his platitude.

"Don't shoot him," Crane said. "If that's from his own men's weapons then it's rigged to explode if used on him."

The gun was tossed away. Linda's freed hand picked up the bat-masked Goon's foot and awkwardly half lifted him, his free foot left scrambling on the ground to find support. "I'll snap him like kindling unless you toss the coat and gloves."

"This is getting pervy," Joker purred as he removed the coat and gloves in a suggestive manner. A few blades and metal playing cards dropped out of pockets. He had a mechanism attached at his wrist. He unlatched and let that drop too. "I'll save us some time and also ditch my gun."

Joker walked toward Linda.

"Stop," she commanded him, causing him instead to quicken his pace.

He'd only had suspenders on under the coat, revealing his lithe, muscular frame. Each muscle was as articulated to abominable fineness, every twitch visible. Scars littered his skin. Mostly long streaks invoking knife cuts, some ugly burns, and at least two bullet wounds.

"I came to this church," Joker said, rolling his shoulders. "Just in case a fight broke out. Hard to top the epic scale of a dramatic fight scene set in a Gothic Cathedral."

"Fuck it," Linda said. A wet snap preempted a final spasm from the bat-masked Goon, before his broken-necked corpse was tossed aside as if it weighed a quarter of what it did.

Linda crouched into a stance and slowly revolved her arms around until they landed with palms facing Joker.

Linda's super strength was complicated. Her physical structure worked _differently_ than most humans', not better. When it came to a fight, she risked hurting her own body as much as the others. She'd had to learn early on that, while her joints worked like pistons and clamps, her muscles could be torn to shreds if she accidentally moved in jolts.

If she tried sprinting too fast she could overextend muscles and tendons. If she threw a punch hard, it could dislocate her shoulder and crush her hand.

She was always at risk of misstepping while walking and ripping her thighs, or reaching for a pencil on a desk too quickly and over-extending her elbow and pulling something.

From an early age her father had made her obsessively perfect Tai Chi. Crane could be considered an expert martial artist, and had won his fair share of tournaments as a child, but Linda was at least twice as practiced as he was. She had to be. The deliberate, languid motions had bolstered her flexibility to protect herself better from her own freakish strength, and had given her impressive sovereignty over each of her body's movements.

Linda was graceful and deadly.

Crane wouldn't dare go up against her, even if he was armed and she wasn't. He could probably move faster and deal some devastating blows. But, Linda could take a licking, she moved well, was clever, and once she caught ahold, victory was guaranteed.

Joker swung one of his arms in a circle to loosen it. "I hope you're fun."

Crane would be reluctant placing bets on either side.


	18. Accurate Empathy: 5

"None of this is necessary," Crane spoke loud enough for his voice to echo around the chapel. "Joker, I'll give you some toxin in exchange for letting us leave."

Joker pirouetted to face Crane and quirked his head. Linda was shocked seeing the exposed back, thinking it was an unexpected opening.

Crane shook his head at Linda, communicating not to capitalize on the illusion of weakness, as the Joker addressed him.

"No, no, no, doctor," Joker 'tsked' and wagged his finger. "This night has my brain all in knots. Despite my apparent 'genius,' I make a lousy thinker. I can't seem to block all this out," Joker gestured the entire world, though nothing in particular. "Solving my problems is easiest done through action. I liked what you said earlier, that all we are is what we do. So, I'm going to fight your favorite little toy here, Johnny, and figure out if ya'll are better."

"Better than…" Crane hated that he placated the purposefully open ended ramblings.

"Better than enough of a replacement," the Joker's voice went uncharacteristically low at that.

The implication was left in the air. Crane and Linda were on arch-enemy try outs, as Joker's previous relationship was on the fritz.

"If you win," Joker cocked his head back to peer one eye at the battle-intent Linda, "then I don't need your Fear anymore. If I win, you'll both be on the floor, soggy and red, and I'll pilfer the toxin off your conglomeration of _very_ dead particles."

"No," Crane said, straightening his spine and pinning back his shoulders. He hadn't noticed how much his normally trained posture had sagged while being dogged around by a knife wielding kidnapper. "Linda, we're leaving. I'm dropping one sac of toxin in this church, and then walking out of here. We refuse to entertain your childish antics any further."

Crane had hoped for a glimmer of menace from the Joker, but the killer covered his mouth as he uncouthly giggled at Crane's confidence.

"I'm not going anywhere," said Linda. Her double-jointed fingers snapped in, Tiger claw-like, and back into a Willow-Leaf palm position. "Not until after I teach this punk some manners."

 _Damnit, Linda!_ Crane grimaced.

Joker's entire body sighed. "Your banter, it seems, is in need of serious work-shopping."

"Shut the fuck up," Linda's tone brooked no nonsense.

Crane noticed Joker twitch at the remark, and couldn't help agreeing with the killer. Linda's strength certainly wasn't in her quips.

"You threatened the smartest man in the city," Linda said. "A man I believe in enough to gift my mind and future to. However, no matter how much I wish that was enough, I know I'm only good for one thing."

She closed her eyes as she spoke, and shifted deliberately enough to look like a slow motion, crouching into a lower stance. Her arms spread one behind and one forward in as controlled a motion as a machine. "I'm a weapon. And I finally get to be a weapon for the man I, respect more than anything."

Crane noted the near imperceptible hitch between Linda's words _'man I-,'_ and _'respect.'_ His stomach lurched and the blood in his face drained. Was the voice in her head that wanted to say _'love,'_ still that strong?

 _How repulsively jejune._ Was the choke hold of her Electra Complex that overpowering to her? Linda's father trained her to be a killer. She'd rebelled and moved back to Gotham to become a psychologist. Crane had assumed she'd transferred her need of a 'father' to accept her as a brain, rather than just a body, onto him.

 _That is slightly funny. Such a womanly struggle, to be desired for her innards rather than her outer physicality. Though, of course, it's not a fear of being wanted sexually for her. It's frighteningly the opposite._

Crane had been able to control her, hiring her as his protege for her mind, enough that he could exploit her body. Now, it was all backfiring. She was playing _him_ too, hiding her Electra Complex while faking that she was shedding the dead weight of her sexual desires.

 _Perhaps… It would be best if they just kill each other._

"Do what you want," Crane said it quietly, but the creasing of Linda's eyes expressed she'd heard him and was sussing out whether he meant it as an admonishment or consent.

Joker began walking even nearer Linda, "As much as you might _want-_ "

"Die," Linda interrupted.

She launched into her attack before a noise like an explosion of highly pressurized air boomed out from her. An arc of dust shot out behind her leg looking like she had an exhaust pipe. Her arm swooshing through where the Joker's head had been was audible.

Joker stumbled back, barely dodging Linda's swipe. His expression was fearful, and he almost tripped in his retreat from her. Sudden panic etched across his face.

 _An act,_ Crane could see through the Joker's antics. But could Linda?

It seemed unlikely, as she took threw herself into her gained footing, moving in fluid bursts, kicking up the air-exploding booms and arcs of dust with each attack.

The Joker looked completely on the run. Each dodged attack was at the cost of his footing and balance. He swayed, dipped half to the floor, and spun awkwardly to catch himself.

Joker's brief flounder gave Linda the best opportunity yet to land a hit. Playing it safe, she choose a turning kick aimed at his face. All she had to do to win was grab any part of her opponent, but knowing the legends of how feral and dangerous the Joker was, she no doubt was planning to weaken him first.

Joker dove backwards, landing on his back with a thud. As he clambered back up, his shoulders sagged the tiniest bit. Apparently the fall had knocked the air out of him.

But appearances could be, and definitely were in this case, deceiving.

Crane recognized the philosophy in Joker's fighting.

A few years prior Crane had learned the tenets and forms of Drunken Fist Kung Fu. The style took considerable balance and dexterity to move the body around and appear weak to throw the opponent off guard. The swaying movements mimicking a drunken state made it quicker to dodge, and less obvious when the quick attacks would shoot forward.

Crane always lost when he'd practiced the style and had seen most other's also lose while trying it in actual matches. He assumed it was more of a novelty style with principles that were deadly, if they could be applied to real situations. However, it took too much concentration away from the fight and put too much energy into keeping up the swaying and the deceit.

The Joker, Crane witnessed, could use his own version of the Drunken Fist style without any of the cons.

Joker was the perfect performer, luring Linda in with her own confidence. The human eye couldn't tell the difference between a fatal hit Joker struggled to dodge versus the hits he could have yawned at by swaying away from with ease.

He hadn't even attempted his own strikes yet. Linda looked increasingly confident, until she became increasingly frustrated by the never ending retreat by her opponent. Her attacks became simpler, closer range, as she began to favor the riskier use of fatal grapples.

Crane considered yelling for Linda to be more careful, to warn her of Joker's tactic. But it was possible if she became hurt enough to die, she'd have also worn Joker out too. After that, Crane felt alright about his own odds fighting Joker. He'd seen through the tactics well enough and understood the Joker better than anyone.

His fear of Joker receded. Maybe he could take a half-tuckered Joker in a fight. As he watched the fireworks, he itched for his turn.

Linda shouted as she struck and missed. Her hat flew off and a tuft of hair flew over her face and stuck to her sweaty cheek.

She snapped another turning kick aimed to break Joker's ribs.

His own legs sprung up and shot out behind him away from Linda.

Linda's kick cracked the air below him.

The moment her leg returned to the ground it swiveled back and away, giving up footing for the first time.

Joker failed to get his legs back under him as he fell into a face plant.

Or, it looked like he had. His hands had slapped the ground a second before his cheek bone.

One of Linda's hands covered her face. Tears poured from her eyes, followed by gouts of dark blood from underneath her hand.

Joker stayed splayed out on the floor as Linda winced, snapping her nose back in place.

Crane covered his eyes, only able to continue watching by spreading his fingers and peering through the cracks. He cropped Linda out as best he could.

"Now I don't need to worry about your lover sneaking up on my ass," Joker told Linda as he creaked his way off the floor, as laboriously as an old man ravaged by sciatica.

"Crane!" Linda's mouth sounded a bit sloppy. "Run! I can't split my focus on fighting him and worrying about you."

Crane hesitated to do anything. _Did she let herself get hit? Is she bleeding on purpose to incentivize me into escaping without her?_

Crane didn't like attempts at manipulating him. He _despised_ being told what to do.

"You run, you die before both feet exit the narthex," Joker's lips spread to its widest most inhuman proportions.

Crane ran a hand down his face in frustration. As much as he shouldn't base his actions on what other's wanted him to do, he also shouldn't act contrarian out of obstinance.

As he stalked down the aisle toward Joker, aligning the enemy in his sights to block his view of Linda, he stuck a hand in his pocket, fingers coiling around his telescopic baton. "You can't fool me Joker. You put up a strong front, but I see your true weak under belly."

Joker loosened up and began hopping like a boxer itching for his match. "I hope your right Johnny boy. It would be boring otherwise."

In a fluid motion Crane flicked the baton out and sprang it open.

His free hand twisted as his hip and shot off a dart from the wrist mount.

It was a practiced motion, distracting the opponent with the springing forth baton while shooting from a different angle.

A placid expressed Joker crouched down in time for the dart to whizz past his hair…

And hit Linda in the arm.

She was quick to unstick the projectile and toss it aside. Her eyes widened and she refrained from swaying all the way over.

"A sleep dart?" Joker leaned into his crouch, as if stretching his legs was his entire purpose for falling into the pose. "Do you really think that would work on me, even if you hadn't missed?"

Crane charged forward, reeling the baton back to strike.

 _No more banter. Time's on his side now._

Although farther away than Linda, Crane and her reached Joker at the same time, due to her slowing movements. He could see the strain for her eyes to stay open and her legs standing.

Light glimmered off Joker's oversized teeth as he whirled fast enough to make his motions too hard to read.

Crane and Linda kicked and struck out with their hands and the baton as Joker finally let loose.

It was like fighting a whirlwind.

Joker's feet were on the floor as much as his back or hands.

He rolled into a dodge before shooting off the floor like a bullet, landing a hard punch to Crane's face.

Joker rolled on his back where he spun around, kicking wildly in a breakdancing motion.

His movements were not only fast, they were unpredictable in a way Crane had never experienced.

He tripped. Crane hadn't seen Joker's leg trip him, his attacks appearing directed at Linda.

As Crane fell to his back, he realized how much seeing through Joker's attacks couldn't make up for that inhuman dexterity and balance.

No doubt the legends were true Joker could go toe to toe with the dark knight.

Joker's twisting and spinning ceased once Crane crawled halfway from the ground into a crouch.

Joker stood there taking deliberate breaths. He was either less tired than was fair for any living thing after such a physical excursion, or he was faking how much vitality he had left in the tank.

Linda collapsed to the ground, eyes closing.

Crane tried to appear ready for round two, but he'd already failed to be a decent match against a Joker whose attention had been split between two opponents. He also couldn't prevent his body from panting without feeling like he'd pass out.

"Your girl was ridiculously strong," Joker spoke slower than usual. Hopefully due to him needing to catch his breath more than he was letting on. "But I've always found it easy enough to deal with strong opponents. I always wondered what makes normals so darn afraid of the physically dominant."

"I'm a far-cry from normal," Crane panted, rising to his feet.

Joker matched Crane in their arms reach, his real-time battle experience was far greater than Crane's, he was faster, more indomitable, and _better_. Plus, Joker could exploit Crane's aversion to blood at any time.

Was there any weakness Crane could exploit? Was there a single advantage he held over his opponent?

His weapons still weren't enough to even make it a fair fight.

There was a chance, if he could get into Joker's head.

"I'll tell you what will happen if this fight continues," Crane thrust his index finger toward Joker. "I'm going to crush your windpipe."

Joker mimed tugging at a collar he wasn't wearing. "Well, now I'm all worried. Guess I should be extra attentive to defend that part of my body."

Crane smirked and dropped his baton. It was an old trick, but occasionally an effective one. Was he bluffing, or double bluffing?

He went in high, jabs at throat level. Joker parried boxer-like, his fists covering his face.

Crane's jab turned into a clinch as he grabbed for Joker's defending arms. Instead of his feet enacting the fancy kicks he'd drilled for thousands of hours, they spurted out for low weak shin kicks.

 _A hit!_

He'd landed a real hit to the Joker directly in the shin.

Joker tried to lash out with his arms, but Crane's grip proved strong enough to hold him back.

The pain from his kicked shin caused the Joker to tilt as he put pressure on it.

Crane pushed into Joker's momentum, sticking a leg forward behind the other's legs to knock him over, neck first into the wooden pew.

He realized the trap a moment too late.

Joker's injury was another act. He planted all his weight on the kicked 'hurt' leg, and let Crane fall into the momentum he'd pushed himself into.

As Joker ripped his arm free of Crane's grasp, the doctor felt something sticky at his own neck.

Crane found himself again fallen to the ground, back rested against a pew.

He plucked out a tissue from a pocket and dabbed it to his neck. It came back soaked.

Joker loomed over and held out two of his fingers, emphasizing the fine points he filed his nails into. "Oops. I think I may have nicked your jugular a bit there."

Crane felt himself grow cold. His racing heart beat faster but somehow also felt weaker. Each breath became harder and more ragged.

Dribbles of Crane's blood ran like tears down Joker's sharpened fingernails. His long tongue reached out and over to the clean them off.

Crane vomited his entire stomach's contents.

Joker slurped his tongue back in his mouth, instead choosing to flick his hand at the wrist to dash the blood droplets away. "Gross. But can you imagine if I did that? Not to insult you and say you'd taste bad, Johnny, just not feeling that kinky at the moment."

"Please," Crane's voice came out raspy from the bile stinging his throat. Tears had begun plopping unremitting from his eyes. "Not like this. You can kill me, but please not by bleeding to death."

Joker sneered. He looked truly disgusted.

"Joker, please," Crane gasped the words through deep sobs. "I- I'll do anything. I'll give you my money. I can give you the formula for the fear toxin. Don't let me die here like this. I'm begging you… I can tell you Batman's true identity."

Joker's sneer deepened. "None of those offers appeal to me in the slightest. Money means nothing to me. As I already said, I only need the toxin you have on your person." He turned his back to then swivel his head back to peer down at Crane with one eye. "And that last offer is the worst rubbish of all. Batman _is_ the true-"

Before he could finish, Crane's trap was sprung.

Linda pounced from the ground at her prey.

Her hands spread open in what felt like slow motion to Crane.

Each finger found its place against Joker's throat and lifted him into the air, swooping him along into Linda's trajectory.

Both bodies flew into the air several feet from the ground. Linda landed with each foot planted on a pew and the Joker's dangling in the space between. She had to fully extend her arms forward and above her head to make up for the height difference between her and her quarry.

Joker was trapped like a fly in a web.

Crane stood up, wheezing from the sight of so much blood, but knowing he was otherwise fine. The cut to his neck had been superficial, Joker's own attempt at a bluff.

"Your weakness, Joker," he couldn't help himself from smirking. "Is the Batman. I mention something personal about him, and it's enough to distract you, even if only for a second."

Seeing only the Linda from behind, Crane couldn't tell if she was shaking from joy their ploy had worked, or from a seething rage. The dart he'd intentionally shot her with had been drained of its sleeping drug.

Crane wiped his face then neck clean with his sleeve. The shirt would have to be incinerated. He hated how detestably pleading he'd had to act in order to sink the trap's hook into the Joker, but he'd only begged for his life with the aim of throwing Joker off kilter. And it worked.

"Acting the fool," Crane reflected out loud. "A hard lesson to learn, but you taught me well."

A gurgling noise escaped Joker's collapsing windpipe as his body floundered like a fish.

"Should I kill him?" Linda asked.

Crane rocked his hand back and forth. "Halfway. Make sure to knock him out beyond a doubt of him faking. Bind him, _thoroughly_ , and we'll take him back to my place. He'll make an exceptional lab rat."

"I'll bind him up after I bend his limbs until they play like accordions," Linda snarled.

Joker put the remainder of his energy into a final pull at the vice grip of Linda's hands before his arm collapsed to his sides. His legs ceased their fidgeting and clacked against each other unusually loudly.

Crane noticed the flicker from one of Joker's alligator leather boots before he could say anything.

The final kick of the fight was the swiftest executed during the entire night. Joker's flexibility was showcased as his knife-wielding boot was left hovering over his head for a moment before Linda dropped him. She fell between the podium, hands at her face, and a healthy gush of blood following her down out of Crane's view.

Joker made his way to Crane walking across the pew, until he fell to his knees, grasping at his throat. A croak seeped out of his mouth, but clearly, that was the most he was capable of.

In controlled yet hurried movements, Joker removed his boot and put the small revealed blade to his throat and slid it horizontally, creating a crease of red. He clicked a high-end pen out of the boots sole before dismantling it and dipping the tube into his created incision.

Crane found himself on the floor curled up in the fetal position. There was too much blood, far too much blood for his mind to even consider moving.

He watched helplessly as Joker's dribbling red mouth unfurled into the best smile it could manage with the neck and throat mangled as they were, as the pale man bent down to him to reach under Cranes' collar and take away the sack of toxin there.

Crane wedged his eyes closed and squeezed hard at his nose to prevent smelling Joker's pungent blood.

A hoarse whisper was the most Joker could manage, notably lacking all its 'stage presence.' "I find it easy to deal with smart opponents too. But you were just crazy enough to make this worth my time. _That's_ why you're still alive." Joker's lips were nearly touching Crane's ear, yet the whisper was so quiet Crane felt the breath against his inner ear stronger than he could make out the words. "Come find me when you're crazy enough to defeat me for real."

Joker was gone.

Crane was balled up, unable to move, no matter how much he repeated to himself, _I can't get caught here. This situation won't look right to others._

All he could do was wait and listen in hopes of hearing Linda move.

In the distance, the clock tower could be heard striking _ten_ , then _eleven_ , then _midnight_ , as Crane laid still and immobilized…


	19. Accurate Empathy: 6

She clicked through every video available, from the currently reporting news, to shaky phone uploads by those present, and the static street cams of the fallout surrounding that nights the charity event.

The Joker was still at large.

Dr. Crane was still missing, among a few other non-kidnapped individuals.

Bruce Wayne was shone in a heroic light helping injured humans into ambulances, himself looking battered with a bandage covering half his face already soaked beyond use by his puss and blood.

As predicted, the protest had prevented the cops from reaching the gala at first, then panic had ensued once the protesters had also been attacked by drug maddened animals.

A half-seen shadowy figure (assumedly Batman) had swung through to gallantly _kill_ many of the rampaging animals.

Harper felt clammy and claustrophobic. She continued opening more tabs, watching more clips and reading more reports, as if knowing more could help change the facts.

 _What was the point?_ She took a swig of her 'hacker juice,' officially ending the cleanse she'd been attempting that week. The Monster energy and Midori cocktail was making her feel queasy, but she was still too shocked to heat up any food.

An abrupt siren startled her, causing her to fumble and spill the hacker juice onto the floor. She checked her security monitor. A hooded man in obscuring clothing was marching straight up her private entrance.

She double checked that her security measures were on and running before tossing a stack of magazines off her desk to grab her gun. She tiptoed to the door and swiveled the screen next to it to see the figure hover a foot away, making no attempt yet to open the door.

It would be dangerous for him to touch the doorknob without her shutting off the electrical charge being fed into it. Apparently, whoever he was expected such a trap, or was simply lucky.

Harper found herself practically gasping when she attempted to call out to ask whoever it was to identify themselves. She licked her lips and braced her arm to shoot.

 _Don't be dumb. If that's a pig out there, they'll shoot on site if I have a gun. Also, if I shoot this one, there's likely more outside._

She hit the screen to view the street outside. It was vacant, save for one ratty old car with no visible person inside.

She turned up the comm directed at the man waiting outside the door.

"I'm catching my death out here. You gonna' let me in at some point?"

Harper froze. _That voice. It couldn't be._

He'd never been to her house before, for obvious reasons. They'd also never met in person, for the same reason.

She opened the menu to shut off the doors current, then hesitated.

It would be bad if anyone knew he was here. But…

It could be worse to turn him away.

She shut off the security measures, unlatched the doors several locks, and unbolted the knob.

He helped himself in while Harper backed away to a safe distance. Her gun hung down but still in hand; she felt more comfortable holding it.

"Bluebird, it is truly an honor to make your acquaintance in the flesh." Joker pulled down the hood, lifting the shadow from his warm smile and haggard face. He removed a beanie off his head and placed it on a rack by the door. Despite how he'd slicked back his green hair to look smooth, it somehow gave an impression of the man being frazzled after a long night.

"Mr. Gwynplaine," she said, still calling him by the online alibi he'd originally introduced himself to her as. "Good to meet you in person." She rubbed her free hand down her face, even though her sweaty palm failed to alleviate any dampness on her brow. "What are you doing here?"

Joker held up a finger, motioning for her to sit on the questions. "Please; water?" He did sound painfully hoarse.

She led him to her kitchen where she was surprised by her idol taking over to help himself to a glass and poured from the tap. He finished her second largest cup in one gulp before refilling.

Setting it down, he sighed and said, voice still weaker than usual, "Thank you." He hung his head and brushed fingers through his hair. Before Harper could get any traction on her question, he looked back up. "Little girls room? I gotta' take a squirt."

She pointed him the way and watched him saunter off. Alone in her own cramped kitchen, she fluctuated between leaning on her counter, crossing her arms, contemplating grabbing some paper towels to clean her recent spill, or waiting on her couch for Joker to finish his business. She set the gun down on the counter by the sink.

Needing to do something, she shuffled over to the couch and brushed everything off it. Never before had she felt self-conscious about the 'unkempt' state of her house.

 _No need to put on heirs, right?_ A man like the Joker was above judging people through the lens of messy and organized. Wasn't he?

She heard a _flush_ and the sink turn on and off. Joker entered the room and crashed on the opposite end of the couch from Harper. His head rested down on the back as he sprawled out his long body and closed his eyes.

"What a night," he said, tone exasperated.

Harper forced herself not to swallow before speaking. It was hard to say, as there were so many things she'd rather ask and was dying to know, but she had to say it. "What the fuck happened tonight?"

There were many ways he could have misconstrued what it was she had really asked, but he opened one eye toward her to consider the question and his answer before speaking. "You mean why I used the animals."

"I mean," Harper could feel something swelling in her throat. _It's not a betrayal,_ she told herself. _It's not._ She paused to collect herself. "Ya, kind of. I guess. There's more, but, ya, why that?"

His one open eye lazily blinked. "Two of my men died tonight. Killed in front of me."

Harper couldn't help but look away. She felt her face flush.

"I'm not going to try and manipulate you by saying that, Bluebird. If I was, I would leave it at that, making you feel bad by offering you perspective. However, it was still my plan and my actions that lead the zoo animals to going crazy and being killed and hurt. While I'm guilty of taking actions I knew you'd disprove of, it's not the first time I've done so. Nor am I at fault for making you an accessory without forewarning, as it's been your stated desire for me to keep you out of the loop on specifics to my plans."

"You used me to get animals hurt." It sounded stupid, especially since Bluebird had always imagined her first in flesh meeting with Joker to go completely different. It felt wrong to be attacking and blaming him, instead of capitalizing on the opportunity to learn as much as possible from the once-in-a-millennia revolutionary.

" _Zoo_ animals. Not that I think that'll convince you of much, but I know how much you hate Gotham Zoo in particular. Animal prisons, you've called them. The inhabitants were dying out a slogging half-life there."

"You're right," she felt a twinge of anger and defiance surge through her temple and drown out her second thoughts in what she was talking about. "That doesn't convince me of much. You're ignoring the implications this will lead to in the future. The people of Gotham now have etched into their minds the stereotype of animals being aggressive and bloodthirsty. Not to mention that them being butchered isn't _better_ than living out their days like rejected seniors in a zoo."

"My mind devises plans that achieve specific goals," Joker licked his dry lips. "The more goals I set, the less likely I'll be able to devise a functional plan without resorting to massive displays of terror; which I think you'll agree isn't optimal.

"I chose between being effective over keeping you happy for this job. I won't apologize, because I'd do it again, and the act would only be serving the means of placating you. However, I do feel obligated in owing you a favor to make you happy. A small favor with the addendum that I can still turndown any request I find unreasonable. That's the best I can do."

The offer surprised Harper. Before she could chew on implications of an IOU from The Joker, a trembling in her fist distracted her. For some reason she still wanted to be mad.

Joker, picking up on this, leaned just his head to fully face Harper. "None of that changes that I'm a man that is, not only dismissive of harm to animals, but complicit in it. And you don't want that to be reality."

"I… I know what- who you are." _Why am I stammering?_ "I know how you take things too far. You have a penchant for violence. We disagree on multiple levels…

"I help _you_ , and not, say, Batman or something, because while being a destructive solution, you are a solution. You get things done and you change people's minds. You accomplish what people like me wish could eventually be _addressed_ whenever we stand in a protest, sign a petition, or write a pithy blog entry.

"I know sometimes we demand too much of the world, even in full awareness of how fucked up and corrupt people are, from the anti-intellectual masses and bigots, to the money fueled, greedy, cataclysmically nature-destroying fat cats and their gimpy politicians spouting their fear mongering.

"I couldn't help believing that, somehow, we were fundamentally similar; that you stood for something… But I'm afraid that beneath it all, you have no greater plan; that there is no ideal you're striving for."

Joker had taken the veritable speech in stride. "You want me to convince you I'm not empty inside? That I'm more than, say, a random lightning strike that sometimes happens to kill someone you hate?"

Harper blinked. No, of course that's not what she wanted. What she'd asked for wasn't fair. How would she have responded to someone making a similar spiel about her? Sure, she would default to her doctrine of the need for humanity to adhere to the universally beneficial utility functions for humankind as a unit. But she _knew_ Joker's rebuttal to that, the one he wasn't voicing now. That rationalizing morality and higher ideals was window setting for human's true directives: survival and happiness.

 _Ideals_ facilitated survival by… what would he pick? Darwinistic rhetoric about passing on genes? 'Ideals' being comforting dross allowing the plague of human's consciences to sleep at night?

Would he mention neuroscience? That altruism gave brains a dopamine hit? That selflessness was an illusion, at best?

"Sorry," she said. "That's not what I meant to ask. What I was trying to get at, is, what was the purpose of tonight? I watched your speech, I noticed your motifs… but it struck me as patently not you. You involved animals to make a message I both think is unimportant and potentially boring to you."

Joker rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. A glimmer of light caught Harper's attention. A small amount of precipitation on Joker's cheek. The hair on her arms stood on end to a degree she was afraid would be easily noticed. _Did he just tear up?_

"I do apologize for being… not quite myself," Joker's tone had a noticeably added thickness. "I got a bit high on my way over here. It's mostly out of my system now."

Harper nodded. That had done it. She was officially dumbfounded.

"You're not wrong, Bluebird," Joker almost whispered. "The message of tonight's demonstration wasn't important. It was just some shit to distract everyone from my personal aims. I tried divining my own future. You see, I thought it possible to discover what it is I desire. And then I'd just… force my will to manifest. And….." Joker trailed off for long enough with closed eyes to make Harper suspect he'd fallen asleep, until he leaned forward and half opened his lids to peer at nothing. "That's not what happened. What I saw was the future _he_ wants. _His_ plan to domesticate himself and neuter me."

"That' was a lot of violence and suffering for your own self-discovery."

Joker exposed his teeth, snarl like. His lips then curved slightly enough to transform the sneer into a grin. "Of course it is. That's just the boilerplate experience for human discovery. Facing the undercurrent of chaos in an effort to grow requires sacrifice.

"As the story goes, Adam and Eve ate fruit cursed to sentence the human race to death, just so they could _know_ what good and evil were, rather than depend on the word of some higher being. Genghis Khan carved a bloody crest through Northeast Asia, all to prove life's meaning to himself. Guy Fawkes-"

"Alright," Harper interrupted. "I get your point. No need to mention Guy Fawkes just to try and tailor your speech to me."

Joker stood and stretched his back. "Anyways, think on what favor I could do for you. You'll have time while I'm out of town. Speaking of which, did you get the stuff I needed?"

Harper's knot of indistinguishable emotions in her stomach didn't untie, but the mention of the project she'd been slaving over for the past month shifted her focus to the present matters. "Oh, uh, ya. All the information should be in that briefcase. I'd been intending to drop it off at the usual place; hadn't expected you to show up _here._

"Included in there are leads to other sources for info on infrastructure and stuff like that. There was a more severe limit on how much I could do from here than usual, so I left most of the actual leg work up to you."

Joker peaked at the briefcase without examining it as he withdrew a thick envelope. Harper accepted it, also opting to only eyeball the exterior it without pawing inside. It felt more appropriate to trust that they'd both held up their own ends of the bargain.

As Joker looked back up at her, she wasn't shocked at his red, capillary thick sclera, almost looking more like shattered windows than eyes. It was the baggy lids clothing those eyes. Harper couldn't remember ever hearing anyone describe Joker in terms other than how pronounced his monstrous features were, completely downplaying the inarguably human features making up the same person.

He looked to be thirty something, but also gave the air of appearing much younger than his age. How much sleep had he been missing lately? He looked tired; exhausted even. His hands had callouses. That oversized mouth had left a criminally few amount of permanent laugh lines, but, she could see from her proximity to him, that he had the tips of crows feet coming in.

"I'm sorry," Harper whispered. "I didn't mean to come at you like that. I hope that stuff I gathered for you will be helpful. You'll need as much good intel as is possible to break in." _And probably a dose of massive displaying terror,_ she didn't say out loud. "Are you, I mean, do you plan on coming back?"

Joker stood up straight. He was at least a head taller than Harper. Their proximity was tightly pressing Harper's bubble of comfort, but she didn't move away as she usually did. A small friendly smile was on his face. It was familiar enough to be her brother's. It was happy to be around her as much as one on a boy meeting her on a date.

"My city, Gotham… I was born here you know. 'Goat Home' is what it means. Difficult to remember it was little more than that until more recently than you'd imagine. Gotham is both a very new city, yet in ways, older than cities predating it, due to how stuck in time most of it seems to be." He sighed, realizing he was rambling. "I'll have to return. I always do. But, I might not get back before we're either back to humbly being a home for goats again, or gentrified beyond recognition. Either way, whatever our fate, from now on it's completely up to-" Joker froze. Slow enough to almost be beyond detection, his head tilted around. "What is that?"

The wall behind the couch practically exploded. Dust poured in as it collapsed, half obscuring the dark figure flying in and straight toward Joker.

Harper collapsed onto the floor and rolled out of the way. A dull reverberation had been the only noise caused by the explosion, but a piercing and relentless light from the hole forced her to cover her eyes.

Once she realized the brightness wasn't vanishing anytime soon, she splayed her fingers and forced herself to peer around at what was happening through lids squeezed squinted as possible.

Joker kicked himself away and landed like a cat in front of Harper, as if to prevent Batman from getting at her.

It was also Harper's first time seeing the Dark Knight in real life. He cut an imposing figure, or, at least what she could make out of him was imposing. Batman had positioned himself directly in front of the searing light, making him painful to look at. Most of his features were enshrouded by the brilliance, Harper saw how dark his costume was. How impenetrable it appeared, yet the light agility it afforded the wearer. His cowl was his full face concealing version, rather than his alternate that gave the appearance one could see a man's lower face (which of course was a part of the mask, a false face to throw the scent off from the man's true identity).

Dark steam trailed off of a portion of Batman's armor near his clavicle. Joker had already managed to hit him with some sort of acid. It didn't look like it was doing any notable damage.

"I thought I heard you were at the Gala euthanizing Gotham zoo's primate exhibit," Joker's tone was halfway between teasing and being tensed with frustration.

"Wasn't me," Batman spoke with a heavier voice modulation than Harper had ever heard. It was loud and low, making her wish she could cover her ears as well as her eyes. If there was a man behind the voice, it was drowned out by the mechanism garbling out the words he growled. It was probably her imagination, but she felt the amplified voice rattle her fillings. "I didn't even stop by. Came straight here."

Joker began to rise up. His feet widened into a solid position, but his tight fists remained down around his hips. "I did't kill anyone, did I?"

"The fact that neither of us knows yet means you might as well have." Batman's outline stood rigid as a statue.

"If you think I reneged on the trifle _pact_ you tried forcing me into, then shouldn't you be fucking-off from this whole ordeal?"

It took longer for Batman to reply than Harper was expecting. "Your attack tonight was different. You broke the rules. Or, you were proving to me, or maybe yourself, that you were willing to break the rules."

 _Rules? What the hell is he talking about?_ Harper assumed the Joker would have the same question, but instead he hunkered down more, coiling deeper into his defensive position.

"You've been attempting to manipulate me," Joker hissed.

"Yes," came the distant thunder forming Batman's words. "I thought I could help you. That's why I'm here now. We need to talk. I can't help you, not really. Not anymore than the amount you decide to work with me in helping yourself."

"Do you have any idea," Joker said, lacing the words with a barking laugh that sounded unhinged, even for him. "How pathetic you sound to me?"

A card appeared between Joker's fingers, the way a magician would reveal one. Its edges gleamed in the blinding light.

"I didn't come here to fight, Joker," Batman's altered voice gave no inflection, but somehow managed to sound more menacing than before. "That doesn't mean I'm not prepared to."

The light behind the Dark Knight silently increased in intensity as the man himself flew in to motion. His arms became invisible, engulfed by the light.

Harper could hear the click at his wrists and the air _whooshing_ out from projectiles launched out at the Joker.

Joker leaned his body forward and into action.

From Harper's angle below and behind him, it gave Joker the appearance of a boulder being struck by a wave as his body splintered the light around him.

As he threw his card he contorted his body to dodge whatever Batman had thrown at him. Two guttural _thunks_ resounded behind Harper's head as the heavy weapons sunk into her wall and showered debris on her.

Joker spun and danced around more of the same projectiles, making himself as difficult to lay hold of as water. He threw a second card he'd readied in his other hand.

Harper's wall was being decimated as she lost count of how many times Batman shot it. His visible migraine of a light blinked and then began to severely lose power until it was only a fraction of its initial strength, and began flickering on and out in no predictable pattern.

 _That's what the cards were aimed at._

As Harper's eyes adjusted to being able to see again, she saw Batman leap toward them while shooting more projectiles.

She finally saw what they were, as a bola struck home, latching Joker's two hands together. As quickly as his hands were bound, Joker's straight razor flicked open in his fingers and worked to cut the cord.

Before he could loosen himself free, Batman was in Joker's face, a fist aimed at the defenseless mouth.

Harper had felt paralyzed by the instant onslaught of high octane series of events, so it startled her to half passing out when she was yanked to her feet and forced in front of Batman by the Joker.

She'd seen the maneuver before in cam footage. She'd read about it in personal reports from civilians and cops. The first time, Joker had thrown a civilian between himself and Batman, affording himself the perfect amount of time to escape. The second time, Batman had bulled through the civilian to get to the Joker, hospitalizing the prior, and capturing the latter for Joker's first and only stint at Arkham.

Harper wanted to close her eyes, but couldn't. She watched as Batman's hefty gauntlet flew at her. She just hoped it wouldn't be causing brain damage.

Instead of the pain of a fist bursting through her chest cavity, a gloved hand grasped her own. She was pulled into Batman, before being flung away behind him. Her falling was only due to her zero anticipation of she wouldn't be flattened as if she'd stood in the way of a steam roller.

The entire experience had felt so fluid and graceful it was difficult to believe it wasn't planned. It had been more similar to being twirled between two elite dance professionals, than used and deflected by opposing monstrous testosterone freaks trying their hardest to bash each other's heads in.

Now Harper's vantage point was from behind Batman, watching as he tried pinning Joker against her already abused wall.

"So many restraining weapons tonight, Bats," Joker's voice was strained with exhaustion and fury, pitching it steaming-tea-kettle high. "Is there even room left in that suit for anything else?"

"No," Batman said, punching and further denting the wall where the Joker's head had just been.

Harper could see more steam rising from Batman, this time from dots on his face mask. She caught a glimpse of the dispenser at Joker's wrist as he dealt a glancing squirt at the Dark Knight before he weaseled his way out from the wall.

Even with the acid, the Joker had no real way of hurting the armored Batman. And now that Joker had already managed to worm his hands free from the bola, a weapon it seemed Batman had shot his entire wad of, it looked like Batman had no real way of capturing Joker. One was too strong, the other too fast.

Just as it looked like Joker was about to make a clean break from his back literally against the wall, Batman released his wings. Joker was blocked from Harper's view, and immediate escape.

Harper rolled herself away as Batman fell back towards her, toppling over, Joker grasping him in a bear hug and kicking off the wall. The also fallen wings created a massive _whoosh_ throughout Harper's house, blasting every specifically placed paper into the air.

The two men wrestled and panted on the floor with Joker on top.

It was a myth purported by film that fights entirely took place standing up. In Harper's experience growing up in the Narrows, she'd seen this kind of graceless wrestling as the rule, rather than the exception.

It was still bizarre to see The Batman and The Joker resorting to that boyish sort of squirming reminiscent of preteen siblings.

But as long as Joker was piled on top as he was, he couldn't be punched or kicked by Batman's bone-shattering attacks.

Before Joker could get a half decent amount of his acid squirted out, Batman was firing grappling lines from all over his body. One pulled them toward one wall, before another began lifting Batman up to the ceiling by his arm.

The ceiling gave out first as a chunk of dry wall crashed down onto Joker's back. Joker grabbed the retreating cord with one hand before it had fully receded back into the Dark Knight's wrist-mount.

Joker caught a second cord just as it was shot out, preventing it from reaching a wall. A line of blood ran from his hand down the cord toward Batman.

The two were becoming grotesquely entangled in each other. It was hard to tell who was winning or losing, who was trying to do what, or which one was succeeding, if either of them were at all.

Batman's wings were swiftly drawn back in with enough force and wind he was able to sweep himself up, nearly succeeding to shift his weight on top of the Joker. Joker was too fast for that, and the two were again up on their feet facing each other. Their shoulders sagged and they both panted.

Joker let drop to the floor the two ends of the grappling cord he'd burned off. As he yanked his hand, causing Batman to shift his weight and lift his own arm, Harper noticed the pair of Batman's handcuffs now linking the two by their wrists.

Batman's free fist cocked to his side.

"Stand down," a hint of Batman's exhaustion bled into his filtered voice. "I can do significant damage to you at this range, but only if you make me."

Harper stared at Joker's sweat gleaming face. The wet streams flickered with the random strobing of the light he'd recently dismantled. His green hair was a mess, with the longest portions dripping thick globules off his head or sticking to his neck. Veins were sticking out of his forehead and neck as he gasped for breath. His face made him appear too tired to continue.

Until his mouth inched it's way into his biggest grin. As it grew wider than any other human's, Harper flinched, thinking the lips must be ripping apart. And they kept creeping wider. His large teeth shimmered in the broken light.

"You lying bitch," Joker said, voice clear and solid, despite his heavy breathing. "You were packing some heat after all."

Joker's free hand rose, revealing a weapon obviously pilfered off Batman's person. Harper couldn't tell what it was supposed to be. It looked like thick ring with a trigger against Joker's fingers.

"Haven't had the pleasure yet of taking your razor sword out for a whirl," Joker's smile was audible.

Batman's back went rigid. "Don't." Was all he said.

"Goodbye, old chum," Joker squeezed the trigger tight. A loud buzzing and a lightning fast wire snapped out of the ring, rotating around a protruding section to give the wire the rough shape of a sword.

Batman tried to make a move, but Joker was twice as fast.

With a wave of his arm and the loud weapon, an explosion of blood dashed out to the wall and ceiling. A steady flow billowed down and sunk into the carpet.

Batman slowly backed away and raised his shackled hand. Joker's hand dangled on the other end, a steady dribble of blood dripping from where it was severed above the wrist.

Joker's face and exposed teeth were spattered with his own blood.

"Joker-" Batman began.

Joker slashed his handless stump back and forth like it was a weapon, attacking Batman with his blood.

Joker bolted for the whole in Harper's wall.

As Batman stepped out to try and block the path, brief bright pops began shooting out of his mask, accompanied by the zapping noise of electricity. He covered his face with his hands, leaving the third hand to dangle and tap against his elbow.

Harper couldn't tell if she imagined it or not, but it looked like Joker darted one last furtive glance her way with his eyes buried beneath a face furrowed deep by animal survivalism, before he sprinted out the wall and disappeared.

She turned back to see Batman dealing with the acid damage to his mask and suit. The spots that had been burned off had been precise, exposing the wiring and electrical conduits in the suit. Joker's blood had been splashed in to exacerbate the raw currents.

Batman tapped something on his arm, dimming the pops, before removing a small capsule from his belt. He broke the capsule in two, releasing a white sand over the currents on the armor. The electricity began dying down.

Batman was silent, but some movement in his body language gave Harper the impression he was sighing.

He futzed with his mask as he sauntered to and half out the initial hole in the wall.

A portion of the mask seemed to have creaked open. Batman stopped and, without turning to face Harper, said, "Sorry," in a voice almost too muffled to make out. The mask clicked and locked back closed.

Then he too disappeared into the night; the red stained ivory hand still attached to him was the last visible image before the dark overtook him.


	20. Entr'acte (Deputy Commissioner Winthrop)

_AN: I'm planning to release chapters on a consistent basis. So look forward to the beginning of the next arc next Friday!_

 _Since I want to make this story as good as possible and become a better writer, please leave me reviews!_

 _Love or hate anything in my writing? Find anything too convoluted or impossible to understand? Please help me improve by letting me know._

 _Thanks for reading!_

* * *

She'd always had a hunch, but now she _knew_.

Gotham city was _cursed_.

No, worse than that. Gotham _was a curse._

Cards on the table, the _worst_ fear was the most probable. Gotham City was Hell itself.

After the infernal gas had touched Winthrop's lungs, only for a hellhound to pounce at her and rake swaths of her skin off, she'd been sprinting non stop through Gotham's nightmarescape.

Her legs banged against the swirling pavement, long past how long she'd ever run since beginning her career. Her muscles felt raw and sticky, and almost like a new fiber snapped with every consecutive motion.

Lungs felt like breathing into punctured balloons.

Her insides burned and she'd long since torn off her jacket and blouse.

In speeches, like any respectable Gothamite, she'd _boasted_ her being a native, being a true Gothamite with the lineage to prove it. To any resident, that title was a badge of something unique to the peculiar and exhilarating city.

Gothamite carried many connotations. The main being a _survivor._ They said there were two types of natives: those that couldn't afford to leave, and heroes that choose to stay.

But right now, Winthrop would in all seriousness start a committee to modify Merriam-Webster's official definition to the word "Gothamite."

Something reading along the lines of, _"A poor schmuck of abject wretchedness whom God has turned away from."_

For the first time she was seeing with divine crystalline clarity just how utterly beyond hope the whole _fucking_ city was.

She remembered hearing the despicable "factoid" about her city, and how it had at least double the amount of stone _gargoyles_ to the second most gargoyle housing city in the whole goddamn world.

 _That alone_ should have tipper her off to how nicked in the head their founders had been. That insanity, that did something as _incredibly_ _fucking_ _stupid_ as stockpile childish stone grotesqueries, would stagnate. A Gothamite was a maggot born in the muck of rotted cerebral spinal fluid spilt from the heinously walking stillbirth's that had founded the country's biggest city, moments before letting it plunge into the depths of a plague that put to shame anything out of the Old Testament.

Now that she saw, she understood. The gargoyles weren't constructed from the foundational stones of Gotham. No, it was the opposite.

The buildings, the streets… fucking, even the lampposts and gutters were the transmuted flesh of real _hellborn_ Gargoyles.

She could see them now. They weren't out and running about. No, it was far more insidious than that. She could see past the make up of the bricks and mortar, and now perceive the city's _spiritual_ matrices.

Each and every pebble was a face. Every wall was a myriad of eyes peering out bloodshot at her.

"Fuck you!" She screamed at them.

She'd run until she was away from the city, and she'd _never_ return. That was a promise she could stake her life on.

The gargoyles and demons and chimeras began to recede, once again unseen but never out of mind, as her legs began writhe in agony.

Either her the active and whirl-pooling sidewalk tripped her, or the pop in her foot promised some real damage. She fell and slid. The searing white hot lancing through her body was too intense for her to feel any additional pain from her fall.

She remained on the ground for an unknowable amount of time, her internal clock tweaked beyond even guesswork.

She creaked one eye open. The walls were walls once more. Her heat was still blistering, but dialed down to "manageable."

All in all she supposed the hallucinations hadn't lasted more than five minutes. Ten tops.

Her mania weakened enough for Winthrop to be cognizant of it, but hadn't receded enough for her to know if the ominous growls behind her were real or not.

 _The charity event._ Her mind grasped at the thought. _The attack. That much was real._

She steadily rose up and faced the predator stalking her.

A demonic aura visibly illuminated the edges of the beast, much akin to the blotted sun's dampened beams shimmering amorphous talons around the moon during a lunar eclipse. Or… something like that. The mane was a subtle halo of evil.

But the lion, that was real. She could recognize him. His name was Kabul the lion. A famous resident at Gotham City Zoo.

She put her hands up in front of her, ready to ward off any potential attack.

Kabul _appeared_ passive enough, but she she wasn't any sort of expert. Plus, the suspiciously crimson drool at his muzzle could mean he'd transformed into a man-killer.

"Hey there kitty," Winthrop whispered. Her hands were shaking like she was holding an invisible jackhammer. _Fear, or the drugs?_

"Kabul," she licked her lips and continued her attempts to reassure nature's perfected apex predator. "We're safe now. Right? You're away from the crowd, from the noise… from the gas… Those are winding down now, aren't they?"

She moved her back foot in the opposite direction of the lion at a glacial pace. "Good kitty. Caaaaalm kitty"

A particularly feral glint in Kabul's eyes made Winthrops stop dead in her tracks. Shortly after, Kabul dipped his head and turned to the side.

She planted her back foot, and shuffled her front foot behind that one, quickening her retreat.

As she began shuffling a further step back, Kabul's head locked onto her as if he'd noticed she was there for the first time.

"Shitshitshit," Winthrop cursed through clenched teeth.

"In a bit of a jam, are we, DC Winthrop?"

Winthrop jolted at the voice, appearing, tinged with a joviality discordant with the circumstance.

She saw the speaker enter the alleyway and approaching Kabul from behind.

The mysterious person wore a simple black hoody that obscured their face. The bagginess of the clothes made their gender impossible to place.

"I-I need help," Winthrop strained her voice to sound calm enough not to agitate the lion, but knew the desperation filled her tone.

"I can see that, DC Winthrop," the figure, hands in pockets, voice ignorant of the apparent danger as they neared, continued sauntering toward Kabul.

"No- no," Winthrop tried willing the person to halt. "It's dangerous. We need to get the hell out of here."

"Naturally," the figure said. "I wanted to speak with you first. We need to talk about something of the utmost importance, in fact."

 _Was this person daft? Once they neared the lion, they were going to die!_

"Hey," the figure said, stopping next to Kabul to examine him. "I feel like I recognize this lion."

In the amount of time a dream ignites into a nightmare, the lion had roared, reared its head, and pounced its full weight atop the hooded figure.

Winthrop screamed.

"Pew," the Figure said. "Your breath _reeks_."

Winthrop, realizing she'd averted her gaze at the first sign of violence, poked an eye at what she'd suspected would have to be a grisly scene. Her mind's eye predicted seeing the Figure torn open with their intestines drooping, like antelope from _any fucking nature documentary about lions._

Instead, she saw the Figure holding their arms out, one hand against Kabul's upper teeth, their other hand holding firm the lower teeth and jaw.

They held no less than half the entire lion's weight up by the mouth with average proportioned arms.

Kabul struck out with paws bigger than its captor's face, battering the Figure's head.

The figure reacted to the lions claw-tipped swipes as if merely being pelted in the head by wet sponges.

Winthrop had no idea what to make of the situation.

"You're not playing very nice," the Figure said, for the first time having a hint of something other than nonchalance to their cadence. They sounded mildly annoyed. "Just remember, I considered keeping you as a pet."

The Figure's hands reached deeper down the lion's mouth.

Winthrop's throat careened into her stomach; only on reflex. Clearly, the figure was somehow _above_ the any sort of peril.

The Figure hunched the slightest bit, as if readying to attempt a minor physical feat.

They tore the lion in half.

Longwise.

Down from mouth ripping apart to anus.

An unbelievable amount of blood exploded into the alley. Moments later Winthrop's shoes were soaking in it.

The Figure approached her, their entire body steaming.

 _Heat, from the blood._

Organs draped around the Figure like gooey necklaces.

"You're _the Fourth_ ," Winthrop realized as she said it.

"The-?" The Fourth quirked his head to the side. "Oh, right. I listened to your speech about us. Me, and my father's other creations." They snapped their fingers. Bile splashed off as they did. "Wow, you're pretty sharp. Spot on. I guess I am the Fourth."

"Do- do you have a name?" Winthrop ventured.

"Of course I do. Who doesn't have a name?"

Winthrop had been terrified of the gargoyles earlier. But, her mind, some part of it, was aware that it was under a hallucinogenic influence. Facing the lion, that was real fear. As distilled as fear could get. She'd faced the primordial fear of possible death.

Talking to the Fourth she experienced something far worse than either fear. It was… a sort of combination of both. The ancient fear of beasts, of a creature wielding far superior physical strength to oneself that would barely need to exert itself to tear you apart. It was also that fear of a malignant supernatural force. This time, however, there was no doubt. The force was _real._ As real as anyone she'd ever met.

 _Horror._

People were afraid of running into ghosts, despite there not once being a report of anyone being harmed by any, alleged, spectral entities. Their was a fear of facing something so unknown and incomprehensible it exceeded the bounds of life and death.

A child, fearing a monster in her room, pulled covers over her head. That's not an act of defense, but preservation of sanity. The monster-fearing child would rather cover their eyes and never see the monster, essentially praying for a decisive death at it's claws and mandibles, then to witness the Fright and survive.

Winthrop was past fearing for her life. She was well beyond feeling horrified. She'd seen the monster, and wished it had shown the mercy of killing her before revealing itself.

"Like I said, DC Winthrop," the Fourth said. "There's something we simply must discuss."

 _Something about the voice gave it away._ Now that the Fourth was face to face with her, she could perceive the _perverse_ undertone hidden within the recesses of the Fourth's voice. It wasn't menacing. Not sadistic, or even evil in any active or passive way. It was just _wrong._

Winthrop thought about how baby dolls could illicit disquiet within her. Some Ventriloquist dummies too. Something about the more human and lifelike they were designed to appear, the more their _inhuman wrongness,_ their _disguising of their perverted selves with a mockery of a human visage_ , became accentuated.

That general concept was what lurked in the bowels of the Fourth's voice.

The tone wasn't evil, but it certainly wasn't _good_. It couldn't be either of those, because whatever the Fourth was, was so utterly a different being than human, that it fundamentally was incompatible with the concept of morality.

"For my murders, for my misdeeds," the Fourth spoke the words as a toddler might mention words about sex; void of comprehension. "Don't send the police after me. Not officers, detectives, or other cute little Commissioner's and their like."

"I won't need to," Winthrop was surprised at the lucidness of her words. "If you don't do…those kinds of things, we won't send officers after you. Remember, I told you we would help you. We _will_ help you."

"I've heard that before," the Fourth chuckled. If their idea of playing a piano was by snipping its cords, making noise of their vicious _snaps,_ rather than pressing keys with fingers, then their idea of what a chuckle should sound like made sense. "No, I'm not coming with you. Yes, I'm going to murder folks. All sorts of folks. Old people, little kids maybe, pets, police men… And you're not to waste my time by coming for me."

Winthrop was stunned silent.

"Batman has to do it," Their voice rose an octave. Their was excitement at the mention of Batman.

More than excitement. An implication was expressed by the Fourth in their exaltation of the Dark Knight's name. Something Winthrop really wished she could forget or ignore.

 _Sexual_ would be the wrong term.

Winthrop had talked to some real sadists she'd arrested. Psychopaths who mixed sexual desires with extreme acts of gore and affliction upon others, mixed with a dose of childlike innocence and unabashed enthusiasm. They'd forced her to pick up drinking again, just so she could sleep without first contemplating how such inhuman _beasts_ could be classified as the same species as her.

She couldn't shake the feeling that the way the Fourth had shivered while mentioning Batman would make even those sadists she'd arrested queasy.

Winthrop stopped herself from admitting it wasn't up to them who Batman went after or not. "Batman's a hero," she lied. "He'd be ashamed of anyone who murdered just to get his attention."

The Fourth's mouth became visible as it opened in shock. "Oh no. Really?"

"A-absolutely," Winthrop tried sounding as sincere as possible, gambling that the Fourth was an admirer of Batman's, and could be manipulated because of that. "Batman stands for justice. He loves those who do the _right_ thing."

Based on their body language, the Fourth's mood was lighting up. "That's fantastic. I've always been a good person anyways. People always betray me in the end, so if Batman's so upstanding, than he'll understand me. He'll understand my intentions are good!"

Winthrop gulped. The Fourth's adolescent nature and superhuman strength were the worst combination she could imagine. "You'd like to meet Batman, right?"

The Fourth shook their head more forcibly.

"I would like nothing better than for that to happen too," Winthrop said. "If you come back with me to the charity event, he'll probably be there. I can introduce you to him."

The Fourth froze. "Right- right now? So sudden? I don't know. I'm pretty shy."

Before Winthrop could answer, she was interrupted.

"No," the Fourth said. "The message should will have to be enough tonight. I'm just not ready to see him again so soon."

Winthrop sighed. It sounded like she would be spared. "I'll tell him."

"That's alright. I'll leave the message myself," the Fourth said, raising their arm up into the air.

The arm was the last thing Winthrop saw before it came down and squashed her into the crater it left from the impact.


	21. Entr'acte (Selina Kyle)

_AN: Dang. A few days late on posting. Sorry guys, last week was way crazier than I'd been anticipating. I'm still working on the next chapter, so I thought I'd drop this short, bonus act break. Hope you enjoy._

 _And please, any and all reviews are much needed and deeply appreciated. Thanks!_

* * *

She woke to a dog licking the melting snowflakes off her face. Sitting up, she gathered the powder snow had only recently begun and that it was unlikely to grow strong enough to collect on the ground. She patted the dog with one hand while pulling tighter the oversized jacket draped over her shoulder that had doubled as a blanket. There was a half asleep memory from the morning when the inhabitant in the alley she'd curled up into had tucked her in.

She heard before saw the man sitting on the ground at the alleyways opening. Selina shuddered. Assuming from his appearance, he'd gone longer without a shower or washing his clothes than she had. After every insane thing that had happened since Strange's surgery on her, the absence of a shower had been the hardest blow to her psyche. Her brain had obviously been tampered with in some weird ways, but going so long feeling perpetually dirty was the biggest threat to her sanity.

Her head darted around to check every angle of the alley way. They were in Upper Gotham, which had meant fewer unused alleys and places where the homeless could live and sleep undisturbed, but it was still Gotham. There was always someplace dirty and abandoned nearby. Crowds ebbed and flowed on the major street, every footfall catching Selina's attention as a potential Gothamite that might walk her way. She remembered why she hated leaving the Narrows, as there was double the amount of activity at the least.

Why had she come to the Upper city to begin with? Had she really believed she would find any viable information about Strange's experiments from either the protests or the charity event? It was a stretch, at best. The last thing she'd expected was the Joker's attack and the chaos breaking out with the deranged zoo animals. The gas had mostly dissipated when she'd jumped into the fray. She'd only noticed the slightest increase of her viciousness, which meant it probably wasn't the drugs influence compelling her to kill all those animals.

She'd snuck into the event after hearing the commotion inside. From afar she'd spotted Bruce attacked by a tiger. Her initial desire was to go save him, but he'd been able to get the upper hand and snap its neck before she approached. He'd sprinted away without noticing her.

It was hard to believe only hours ago she'd killed an elephant rampaging in Upper Gotham. It was impossible to suss out her feelings, whether the better feeling was having gone apeshit violent like she had, fighting and succeeding to kill so many of the animals, or if having saved human lives was rewarding enough in and of itself.

There was a wad of cash in one of her pockets. Some was stolen from the event attendees she'd rescued the night before. None had been counted. She'd been stealing on occasion when and where she could ever since her _change_ , but the numbers and values of money had become such a small concern to her, she wasn't sure if her brain was simply incapable of comprehending monetary values anymore.

Now, when paying for food, she would throw a handful of money at the register and dash out. It was always more than enough so she wouldn't chased for not doing it correctly, and it saved her from interacting with cashiers. No one cared too much to stop a customer when they _over_ paid.

She dropped the wad at the homeless man's feet.

"For the jacket," she said, and left.

Cops were everywhere. The investigation of the night's excitement was ongoing. Less than a block away from where she'd slept, Selina found a cordoned off scene. The smell of blood was strong enough in the air her hairs involuntarily raised.

She scaled the building and peered down into the blood reeking alley, wanting to see who she'd failed to rescue. She could clearly distinguish the scents of two different bodies. One human, one big animal, probably feline.

All her new, over developed, survival instincts blared in her head, clarifying her vision to the point of needing to squint them almost closed. Her pupils could grow twice as large as they used to, making even overcast Gotham days near unbearable whn she became agitated.

What shocked her was the message scrawled in blood against the alley wall.

 _"Send Batman to come find me before things get worse!_

 _-The FOURTH."_

Selina licked her lips. One of the other experiments had been here. She'd been so close without her ever noticing. _And it was dangerous._

She vocalized the rage that flared within her with an unladylike snarl. Strange had been responsible for so much death and violence.

After escaping Arkham's bowels, finding herself altered in ways she still barely understood, being naked and confused, she broke into a clothing outlet. A worried employee came over to her. Her new instincts could only translate the potential threat the man imposed. She scratched his head with claws folding out of her finger tips.

With her new senses, especially strong as the claws sprang out and neared a person, she could feel the heat in bodies emanating from blood and its flow through the veins.

She'd intentionally missed slashing anything major in the employee that would hurt him too bad or kill him, but he'd bled more than anyone she'd ever witnessed.

Since that time, she'd kept her run-ins with other people to a minimum. Loneliness could be crushing at times, but she couldn't drown out all the tells of danger or threat people posed. The ways people could attack her were the only things she was allowed to notice about them.

Strange had altered her into a weapon and a danger to others. He had done so by violating her, operating on her against her will. She'd seen him as a friend, a potential mentor, even. And he'd promised to help her change the world to make it more survivable. She'd listened to him, confided in him, all because he told her he didn't want to change who she was. No, _she_ was too good for the world, he'd confided.

How in the fuck had changing her into _this_ not changed her? It was the same world, just one she saw in a completely different way. Not to mention, she was even less accepted, even more relegated to the periphery of society and hobbled from integrating ever again.

His other experiments, his "beast men," hadn't even hidden themselves and their inherent threat they posed. All of them had become ruthless murderers, and this "Fourth" had proven itself no different.

The Fourth was an extension of Strange's spreading disease. While the man himself rotted away in Blackgate, his legacy was living strong in the Fourth.

Fuck Batman. She'd sniff out the Fourth first. Then, she'd make it answer for the stain it was leaving behind as it enacted Strange's will.


End file.
